


My Little Runaway

by sahem62896



Category: Law & Order: SVU, Oz (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:49:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahem62896/pseuds/sahem62896
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all you Oz and L&O:SVU fans out there who, like me, tuned in regularly for every installment of Dr. Squidlove's wonderful crossover serial entitled "<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2407613">Someone Like You</a>," I hereby offer my humble attempt to continue the story.  I'm actually not sure whether this counts as "Oz/L&O: SVU Fanfic" or "Someone Like You" fanfic, but either way it's an AU work and not an official sequel. I hope you enjoy it.</p><p>With that said, our story begins a few years after "Someone Like You" ends. The regular characters who made that story the fun adventure that it was reunite to face another challenge... this time involving the children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Slip

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Someone Like You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2407613) by [drsquidlove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drsquidlove/pseuds/drsquidlove). 



> Oz is the property of Tom Fontana and HBO. Law & Order: SVU is the property of Dick Wolf and NBC. Someone Like You is the Property of Dr. Squidlove. The characters, epigraphs, and even this disclaimer are used without permission, but with much appreciation.

_"The kids are alright…" —The Who_

  
  


Elliot frowned at the phone number that came up on his cell phone, trying to remember where the hell the 619 area code was. He was just about to let it go to voicemail when something told him that he should take this call — that it wasn't just a random wrong number. He flipped the phone open and brought it to his ear. "Stabler."

"Elliot, it's Harry Beecher."

Now, this was a surprise. Wasn't today the day he was supposed to be going Hawaii or someplace like that with his grandparents to spend Christmas? He was pretty sure of it.

"Well, hey there!" he said glancing at his watch. It was a little after four in afternoon. "I thought you'd be somewhere thirty-thousand feet over the sea by now."

"Actually, ummm..."

Oh, this wasn't good. Years worth of interrogation and parenting teenagers had taught Elliot that this was the start of a confession that didn't want to be given air. "What is it?" he asked, leaning back in his chair and prepared himself for unpleasant news.

"I'm in New York," said Harry after a pregnant pause.

Elliot sat up straight. "You're _where_?"

"I'm in New York," he repeated slowly. "At LaGuardia Airport."

"Do your..." Elliot began.

"No," Harry interrupted, "they don't. And neither does Dad."

Elliot heard the click of his teeth meeting as his jaw snapped shut. Something was definitely not right here. Too many questions were swirling in his head, and he picked the one which surely had the answer that he least wanted to hear. "What are you doing in New York?" he asked.

Harry began to speak, and as he listened, Elliot's stomach muscles tightened. As a cop and father himself, it wasn't the worst thing he had ever heard, but he still couldn't believe it. He could only imagine how Toby was going to handle this information, and he was positive that the Jonah and Marta were already beside themselves with fear. When Harry was finally done talking, Elliot took a couple of seconds to regroup and then told Harry what to do.

Harry promised he would do it.

"Good," Elliot said. "Now, just sit tight."

"Okay," Harry whispered.

"Bye."

"Bye."

Elliot pocketed his cell phone and pushed himself away from his desk with his good arm. The other one was still in a sling. Ordinarily, he hated the tedium of desk duty while recovering from an injury, but when circumstances like this arose, it did make it a little easier to get away. He began stuffing his files into the back pocket of a laptop case and snatched a couple of pens from his top drawer.

"Ain't it a little early to be knocking off?"

Elliot looked up. Fin was staring at him with one eyebrow raised. "Oh, I'm not knocking off just yet," he responded.

"Sure looks that way to me," Fin observed, pointing at the case.

"Gotta bring someone here first," Elliot said, closing his laptop and disconnecting the power cord. "After that, I'm calling it a day."

Fin's gaze sharpened. "What is it?"

Elliot sighed. "It's one of the kids."

All concern evaporated. "Yours or his?" Fin asked coldly.

Elliot soured. Fin had been one of the few members of the squad who had not taken the news of his relationship with Toby very well. It had less to do with the fact that it was another man as it did with the fact that Toby was, in his eyes, still just a skel. It didn't matter that Toby had completed his parole a couple of months ago, and it didn't matter that once upon a time Toby's information had helped them to solve a murder at Franco's a few years earlier. He also couldn't believe that Fin didn't even ask what was wrong. Would he have even dared to ask that question if he were still with Kathy?

"What difference does it make?" he shot back, giving him a look that dared him to say something — anything at all.

Each man held his stare as long as he could, and then Fin brushed Elliot off with a sigh and a wave of his hand. "Go on," he muttered. "I'll tell the Captain."

  
* * * *  
  


"You alright, Mister?"

Toby turned to look at the driver who was twisted around in his seat giving him an impatient look. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said, suddenly realizing that he was at his destination and that the cabbie was waiting for his passenger to pay his fare and get the hell out of the cab. He fished a ten out of his wallet and told the driver to keep the change as he got out of the car and started up the steps of the 16th Precinct.

The feeling of dread swelling in his belly was horrible. Elliot had promised to explain everything to Toby when he got there and said there was no need for alarm, but he just couldn't believe it. The way that Jonah and Marta had been blaming Toby for what they called "their grandson's recent tendency towards erratic behavior," he supposed that they also wouldn't be too surprised to hear that he had been picked up by the cops. He never thought it would be the NYPD, though. And he never figured it would be the sex crimes... or Elliot who'd be making the call to come to the precinct. Wait until Jonah and Marta got an earful of this. Wouldn't they be just delighted?

And what the hell was Harry doing in the city anyway? In the elevator on the way up to the sixth floor, he replayed the fight that he and Holly had been having during his last visit to New York for Thanksgiving. Harry had been grumbling to Toby about not wanting to go on the upcoming trip to St. Maarten, and upon overhearing it, Holly had been merciless in her criticism. She'd called him a whiny little shit for having the audacity to complain about having to go someplace sunny and beautiful, especially when he practically lived in luxury in a sunny, beautiful place for most of the year. Toby had tried to subdue her with a snap and a harsh glare, but it was no use. An screaming match ensued that eventually sizzled down into bitter silence by the time he and Elliot had dropped Harry off at JFK to go home. It was typical Holly-and-Harry drama that hadn't abated in all the time that the two siblings had known each other. On the ride back to Brooklyn, Toby asked Elliot when it was ever going to get easier. Elliot smiled and told him it would probably be when they were in their thirties. He had rolled his eyes and laughed then. Now he just wanted to cry.

The elevator doors opened and Elliot was standing there. Whatever control Toby had at that moment went. "Where is he, El?" he pleaded rushing forward.

Elliot reached out his one good arm and put it on Toby's shoulder. "Toby, just listen..."

"Please, just tell me where he is!"

Elliot caught Toby in an embrace and grunted as Toby ran full-force into his shoulder. Hearing Elliot's yelp, Toby retreated a step.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry," he said looking down at the injured arm.

"It's okay," Elliot said, quickly dismissing it. He pulled Toby close for a few seconds and then took a step back so that he get to the heart of the matter. "Now just listen to me, Toby. He's alright. He hasn't broken any laws and he's not under arrest, okay?"

Relief washed over him for a minute, but no calmness came. "Then what's he doing here?' Toby cried.

"If I've got him here with me, then he won't be going anywhere else," he explained.

Toby buried his face in his hands and groaned. None of this was helping. "What's he doing in New York?" he demanded looking up and curling his fingers into claws. "He's supposed to be on his way to the Caribbean!"

Elliot drew in a deep breath and ran his free hand over his face, stretching his features just slightly. It was mind-boggling to Toby how he could be cool under these circumstances. "Apparently, he gave Jonah and Marta the slip at the airport in San Diego," Elliot explained.

Confusion twisted Toby's face. "He wha... he did _what_?"

"He says that he went through security with them, and once they got to the gate he excused himself to go to the bathroom," Elliot said. "That's when he snuck off to another gate in the same terminal and boarded a flight on different airline that eventually got him to him to New York."

"How the hell could he just get on another flight?"

"He had a ticket and a boarding pass."

Despair swallowed him. There was only one way he could have gotten the money for another ticket. "Please don't tell me he stole from Jonah and Marta to pay for the ticket, Elliot," he begged after a shuddery sigh. " _Please_ tell me anything but that."

"He said that he cashed in a savings bond that had been given to him to buy the ticket, so technically, it was his own money." Elliot let a couple of seconds go by, then he shrugged. "But as for how he got his hands on that savings bond..."

"Aw fuck!" Toby sighed. His hands fell against his thighs and he collapsed into a bench next to the elevator bank.  
Elliot stepped forward two paces and knelt down until he was eye-to-eye with Toby. He put his hand on Toby's knee and started rubbing it. "Now Toby, I told him to call his grandparents and let them know where he is and that he's not hurt. He did so while I was driving out to there to get him. Checked his phone to make sure he did it, too. He made the call at about the same time I called you here, and he was on the phone with them for about ten minutes. I don't know what they said to each other, but I know he's gotten in touch with them."

Toby closed his eyes against the sting of tears. He could only imagine what had taken place in the course of that conversation. He was surprised that Harry had been able to take ten minutes of whatever they had to say in response. These days Toby could barely take ten minutes of them himself. Even as he sat there, he could hear Marta berating him in his mind, telling him that Harry never was this willful and belligerent until he started spending so much time in New York with him and "that man." She would never call Elliot by name. It didn't matter that Elliot was a cop that helped abused children and rape victims, and the fact that he was a former marine who had done a turn in Desert Storm didn't mitigate her attitude. That Elliot's children — especially his son, Dickie — and Harry were friends won him no points either. He was gay and in love with her ex-con son-in-law, and that was not only bad enough for her, but also for the child she and her husband were trying to raise. She had actually used those words about six months ago, and Toby had been utterly destroyed. Was this the kind of crap they were poisoning his son with too? If so, then he could hardly blame him for being rebellious. However, a stunt like this was outrageous, even for Harry.

"Toby, look at me," Elliot said.

Wearily, Toby opened his eyes. Tears spilled.

"We're going to get through this," Elliot said, taking his hand off Toby's knee and thumbing away the tears under the lens of his glasses. "You hear me?"

"Yeah," Toby whispered, taking off his glasses passing his hand over his face once.

"He's safe, he's whole, he's unhurt, and people know where he is," Elliot said, itemizing the things Toby needed to remember. "So we're not going to panic, are we?"

"We're not going to panic," Toby said with a sniff. He didn't know if he was talking to Elliot the cop who knew how to deal with a parent in high emotional gear or Elliot the boyfriend who loved Toby's kids as much as his own, but it probably didn't matter. The man was saying everything he needed to hear in order to keep flashbacks of his older children's kidnapping at bay.

"That's right," Elliot said, leaning in until their foreheads touched. "We're going to be cool, and we're going to take him home now so that he can settle down too, okay?"

"Okay," Toby agreed.

Elliot leaned back, hooked his finger under Toby's chin and raised it just a bit. Toby saw the small smile, and finally his heart slowed down and his internal temperature returned to normal.

"Love you," he said, tapping Toby on the tip of his nose with the pad of his index finger.

A small lump developed in his throat, and he managed to swallow a little of it. "Love you too," he said. "Thank you."

Elliot's hand plunged into his hair and ruffled it, then he rose to his feet and offered him his hand. Toby put his glasses back on, took hold of Elliot's hand, and let himself be hoisted off the bench.

"You know, he's lucky he even made it to here before the snow comes," Elliot pointed out. "They're saying it's going to be one hell of a blizzard."

"Jesus," Toby said, grabbing a fistful of his own hair. "He didn't think ahead enough to bring a coat or anything like that, did he?"

"We'll worry about that later," Elliot said with a swipe of his hand. "If the weather holds off for a little while longer, I'll have Kathleen drop off one of Dickie's."

Toby nodded. Thank God for Elliot's kids. "Have you got him in the cage?' he asked as they crossed the threshold into the squad room.

"Better," Elliot answered. "I've got him in an interrogation room with the Captain."

"Think he'll make him crack?" Toby asked.

"Oh, I guarantee it."

For the first time since he had gotten the news, Toby smiled.  
  


* * * *

  
"Dad!"

Harry darted out of the chair and rushed into his father's arms as Toby entered the room. He was too big and too old to pick up off the ground, but Toby would have done just that if he could have. He could feel his son's hot face working against his shoulder through the fabric of his shirt and his coat. The lump in his throat was back, and he began to repeat Elliot's words in his head like a mantra:

_He's safe... whole... unhurt... and people know where he is..._

"Looks like the kid's lawyered up," Elliot quipped from the doorway.

Cragen pushed back his chair and snapped his fingers. "Damn it," he deadpanned, "I was this close to getting a confession outta him too." He held up a hand with the thumb and forefinger barely touching.

Harry snorted into his Toby's shoulder, and even though it felt awkward given the circumstances, Toby began to laugh too. Harry pulled his face away and took one pace backwards, laughing through the tears. Toby was once again struck how he still looked like Genevieve, even as he grew older. Puberty usually did a number on kids' faces, but for now his skin was still clear and everything was still in proper proportion. He had braces on his teeth now and, thanks to a little bargaining with Jonah, he had gotten the kind that took on the color of the enamel to which they were cemented. He looked healthy and well fed. His clothes were in good shape, even if they were totally wrong for New York City in the wintertime.

 _Safe... whole... unhurt..._ intoned Elliot in Toby's mind.

Cragen stood up, tugged on the lapels of his suit jacket, and walked over to them. He smiled and rested a hand on Harry's shoulder. "You two going to take him home now?" he asked, looking back and forth between Elliot and Toby.

"Yeah," Toby said, nodding.

"Good," Cragen said with a curt nod. "Probably best to start now before the snow gets here."

A cell phone rang and each person in the room extracted a cell phone from a pocket. The ringing one belonged to Toby. He looked at the caller ID and his face fell. "It's Jonah," he said.

"Don't answer it, Dad," Harry said.

Toby looked up and saw that his son's face had gone a shade paler than it was a minute ago. It was also then that he noticed the tear stains on his cheeks under the harsh fluorescent lights in the room. The responsible father in him wanted to answer it anyway just to quickly tell Jonah that everyone was fine, that they were on their way home, and then hang up. However, the part that had suffered the scornful remarks of Harry's grandparents saw the boy's pleading eyes and the subtle way he was shaking his head, begging him not to answer it.

"I agree with your son," Cragen said, breaking the silence and moving one step closer to Toby. "Let it go to voicemail, at least for tonight."

Toby's gaze shifted to Cragen's face and he saw an earnestness that could not be denied. Toby had never believed in telepathy, but as his eyes connected with Cragen's, he swore he could hear the man's voice ordering him not to do it. Toby felt the responsible dad in him yield, and he pressed his thumb against the volume control, silencing the ringer. An audible collective sigh filled the room.

After a second or two of silence, Toby finally said, "Okay Harry, where's your stuff?"

"It's over at my desk," Elliot piped up. "Why don't you come with me, Harry? We'll get it together and head out of here."

Harry nodded. "Okay," he said and stepped forward. At the doorway, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. "And hey, thanks for hanging out with me for a bit, Captain."

Cragen tipped Harry a wink and Harry pointed back at him with a smile. He brushed past Elliot who turned to follow him. Toby watched them go for a couple of seconds and then turned his attention back to the other man still in the room.

"Captain Cragen..." he started, and then paused. It seemed silly to call him that now that they had also gotten used to seeing each other at least once a week at an AA meeting in Murray Hill. "Don," he began again after a small sigh, "why do I get the feeling there's something you're not telling me?"

"Because you're right," Cragen answered. "There's a whole lot I am not telling you that you need to hear from your son."

"Elliot said he wasn't in trouble."

Cragen shook his head. "Not with us, no. His grandparents, on the other hand..."

As if on cue, the phone in Toby's pocket rang again. He didn't have to look to know that it was Jonah making a second attempt. This time, the responsible dad won out. He fished the cell phone out of the pocket of his coat, flipped it open, and held it to his ear. "He's here in New York, he's fine, and Elliot and I are taking him home tonight, Jonah." In the instant before Toby snapped the cell phone shut, both Toby and Cragen heard the tiny sound of a man on the other side of the continent roaring through the speaker of Toby's cell phone. Then there was silence as Toby closed the phone and pocketed it. "You were saying about his grandparents?" Toby asked in a voice that began to crack.

"I told you not to do that," Cragen said.

"Yeah well, I'm an alcoholic," Toby grumbled, "and therefore defiant by nature."

"Stop it," Cragen ordered. "You know better than that."

"Look," Toby said, running a hand through his hair. The sting of the tears and the sour taste of rising bile in his belly was unbearable. Whatever remained of the calmness that Elliot had helped to instill in him upon his arrival at the 16th Precinct had vanished. "I once spent eight nightmarish days waiting to find out whether or not I was going to receive a piece of my daughter's body in the mail the same way I had with my son. And even if this isn't the same set of circumstances, I am not going to let them worry about him like I worried about Holly."

Cragen's eyebrows went down. "Why are you even comparing this to Gary and Holly being kidnapped?"

"Because," he said, "I can guarantee you that that's what Jonah and Marta are thinking is going here. When they finally get to New York — and believe me when I say that I know they are going to come — they will be out for blood."

"Toby," Cragen said carefully after a moment or two, "you didn't know ahead of time something about what went down today, did you?"

Toby looked into Cragen's eyes. Once again, he didn't know whom he was talking to. Was this the fellow AA member who would keep confidence on a personal matter or the high-ranking cop who was starting to smell a case developing? He pondered it for a bit, and then realized once again that it didn't matter which. The answer was the same either way. "Of course not," he said.

"Then what are you worried about?" Cragen asked, spreading his hands.

Toby shook his head. "I don't know," he huffed and headed for the door.


	2. Cool Moves

By the time the three of them left the building, the snow was starting to fall. The rush hour traffic was already building up in the streets of lower Manhattan as people began to try to beat the storm home. It was pretty much a guarantee that the trip across the Brooklyn Bridge would be slower and more frustrating than normal, and that there would probably be a blinding curtain of white by the time they made it on to Flatbush Avenue. On the way out, Elliot had commented that he hoped the other drivers would keep their heads in the compromised road conditions. Harry thought that maybe people would yield the street to them if Elliot ran the lights and the siren.

Elliot rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You watch too much TV," he said, pulling a wool hat over his head and picking up his pace. "Be right back."

As Elliot disappeared around a corner, Toby looked at his son bundled up in a sweatshirt from Elliot's locker and also a hoodie from Fin's ("I don't know what's gonna happen to you when they finally get you home to Brooklyn, kid, but at least we can keep you from freezing your surfer-boy ass off on the way there," Fin had told Harry gruffly as he handed it over to him) and sighed.

Harry bit his lip. "I suppose you two are mad as hell at me, huh?"

Toby heard Harry's words a little differently from the way Harry had probably intended them and couldn't help but be a little humbled. Once upon a time, the idea of Harry regarding Elliot as anything more than just his absent father's 'friend' was impossible. A statement like that made Toby realize that Harry saw Elliot and him as a unit and that the boyfriend, like his father, might actually be another concerned parent in some form. It soothed his mind a bit to see that he'd grown like that too.

"I don't think Elliot is mad at you at all," he said. "And I'm not either right now, but I won't promise not to be tomorrow when I start asking questions.”

"Why wait 'til tomorrow?" Harry asked.

"Because I'm not ready to hear the answers yet."

"I get it," Harry said glumly.

It wasn't just a flip remark; Toby really wasn't ready to hear the answers. Even so, the mind was already at work putting together the pieces. What his son had done today wasn't a spur of the moment decision. The fact that he had cashed in a savings bond and bought a one-way ticket that departed on the same day that his grandparents just happened to be taking him to St. Maarten was all the proof he needed that it had been planned in advance. He had been talking about it at Thanksgiving, and not too favorably much to Holly's chagrin, so this plan must have been in the works before or after that time at the earliest.

No, it had to have been before.

Even before Harry's last trip to New York, Toby had been putting up with all kinds of complaints and hurtful remarks from Jonah and Marta about what a bad influence he and Elliot (and sometimes Holly) were followed by a report of every transgression, no matter how minor. It was as if they wanted him to believe that three of them—but mostly Toby—were the reason behind every detention assigned to him at school, every skirmish he had with another student, every instance of broken curfew, and every smart remark he uttered. If Toby was getting that kind of treatment from them, then so was Harry in all likelihood. It made his stomach turn even more. God only knew precisely how long that had been going on, but Toby suspected it had been happening since the day he had gotten out of jail. Had they been this tough on Genevieve? He couldn't remember her ever saying so. Yes, they pressed her for a lot of the details of her life and tended to like very thorough reports, but she was their only child and therefore their treasure until the grandkids came. They had always been polite to Toby, if not pleasant. But now the only link to their daughter who still had a clean record was Harry, and they seemed determined to keep that link shielded from any damage that even a normal adolescence was bound to cause. Having a gay father who had served eight years in Oz for DUI and vehicular manslaughter frustrated their efforts, to be sure. Toby could stomach their disdain for him (or so he thought), but if they were using their bad feelings for Toby as a license to give his son as a tough time, then he wouldn't have blamed Harry for wanting to run away, even if it wasn't the most appropriate solution.

No matter what had gone down between them in California, Jonah and Marta were going to come to New York to get Harry eventually and bring him back to their home. That was the point at which the questions to which he really didn't want to hear answers began. When they got here, what was Harry going to do? What were his grandparents going to do? Were they also going to assume that Toby had orchestrated all of this in an effort to make it look like Harry had run away rather than face the reality that Harry had in fact, run away? Was there another judge and another court case on the horizon? An ugly custody battle, perhaps? Dare he even try to fight?

He closed his eyes as the questions drifted around him like the snowflakes coming from the sky above them. What was it Elliot had told him to keep him cool?

_Safe... whole... unhurt..._

Yeah, that was it. Just needed to focus on that.

Well, there was one other thing he could do to break the tension.

"Okay, I do have one question I'm going to ask now," he said after a bit.

"What?"

"You really would rather be here in New York where it's grimy and cold than laying on a beach in St. Maarten? What the hell is wrong with you?"

Harry snorted again.  Toby put his arm around him and Harry leaned his head into his father's shoulder.

 

* * * *  
  
  


Overnight, a good ten inches of snow had fallen on the tri-state area. In the soft, purple light of the following morning, Elliot dressed as quietly and as carefully as he could with his wounded wing. He looked out the bedroom window at the thick white blanket which covered every car on the street, and turned them into unrecognizable humps. A few of them were right in the middle of the road, and the cop in him was bitter with their owners. Didn't they realize that by abandoning their cars they had just made it impossible for a snowplow to get through that morning? They probably did, but what could they do if they were stuck except get out of the cold to keep from freezing in the street. That thought softened him a bit. Hell, he needed to be grateful that everyone in his own car had made it home safely last night despite the traffic, the compromised visibility, and the fact that he could only drive one-handed. It wasn't until Toby had helped him get undressed for bed the night before that Elliot confessed to how frightened he had been all the way. A wry grin had spread across Toby's face as he asked Elliot if he needed some comfort. He had tilted his head to the side for a second and looked as if he were seriously considering it before admitting that it could help.

Afterwards, while Toby was curled warm and naked around him, Elliot wondered if Toby, like himself, had been hoping to get his mind off his fears with a little nookie. He suspected that Toby, who had decided to put off hearing the reason Harry had ditched his grandparents until the morning, was clearly lost in a sea of worst-case scenarios, and Elliot was more than happy to distract him with a little naked playtime if that was the case. However, as he lay there in the dark with Toby's cock nestled in the cleft of his ass, a part of him wished that, instead of jumping right into bed, he had snatched up the courage to admit that all the way home, his own mind had been replaying a horrible childhood memory of being in trapped in a car during snowstorm much like last night's while his mother peeled down a deserted Columbus Avenue chasing snowflakes in a manic state. It had happened almost thirty-six years ago, yet as the snow came down harder, he had begun to recall with perfect clarity how he had screamed for his mother to stop and told her that he was scared. But that ride hadn't ended until the car was wrapped around a streetlight and his arm was bent into a hideous angle. He had forgotten all about it until last night's drive home. Even so, he couldn't bring himself to say anything about it. Better to just focus on something else — like how your boyfriend also wanted to have sex to get his mind off of what was really bugging him. There were more grown-up solutions to such problems, perhaps, but Elliot didn't care. Not then, anyway.

He looked back at the bed. Toby lay on his belly with his ear in the pillow and one bare butt cheek peeking out from under the comforter. He knew that Toby was often plagued by nightmares, but at that moment he appeared to be free of them and it was one of many things for which Elliot was glad. Also among them was how Holly had taken Harry's arrival with surprise but not outrage, and how Harry had been courteous to her in turn. That was a huge relief. He had been envisioning an exchange that started with Harry telling Holly that he hoped she was happy now that he wasn't going to St. Maarten and Holly grumbling that her stupid brother was going to make another holiday miserable for her. Instead, they had passed a relatively cordial evening together, eating dinner with gusto and watching the snow accumulate. The bonus had been watching Holly and Harry helping their father unpack and blow up the inflatable mattress in the living room and put clean sheets on it. It was then that he knew this was going to be okay, no matter how much hand-wringing Toby was doing inside and no matter how much Holly was restraining her tongue.

Elliot got the hated sling over his head, slipped his arm into it, and then bent over to give Toby a very soft kiss on the cheek before he left the room to get the coffee started. As he opened the door, he saw Harry seated at the kitchen table still wearing his jeans and one of the sweatshirts he had borrowed last night. One of his knees bounced rapidly under the table while his thumb darted with lighting speed over the keypad of his phone. His lower lip was tucked between his teeth. On the table near his elbow was a half-full glass of orange juice. He looked up from his phone and his knee stopped bouncing. "Hey, g'morning," he said as he closed his phone with a swift flick of his wrist.

"Hey there," Elliot whispered as he close the door quietly behind him. "You sleep okay?"

Harry shrugged. "Best I could."

Elliot gave him a bittersweet smile. Toby's son was a picture of the typical American teen in this day and age, and he had no idea how fortunate he was to be looking that way. He was a far cry from the runaway teens from his most recent case. Those boys were being abused and pimped out by their drug addicted parents who, it turned out, were also armed. The shots had started as soon as the police had broken down the door to make arrests, and Elliot had taken one in the shoulder and one in the upper arm. No matter what the troubles were back in San Diego that had led him to flee, at least that kind of chaos wasn't going on in his life.

"Well since you're up," Elliot said, "why don't you give me a hand getting breakfast started? I'm kinda crippled here, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Yeah, I meant to ask you what happened," Harry said.

Elliot paused and ran his free hand across his lips. "Let's just say I took one for the team, okay?"

Harry got up form his seat. "Meaning you're not going to tell me, right?"

"That's right," Elliot answered as he patted the kid on the back and guided him to the kitchen. "Now come on. That coffee isn't going to make itself."

"They do have pots that will do that for you," Harry said.

Elliot handed him the carafe. "Here. You just fill that up."

"They have an alarm clock built into them and they can grind the beans for you..." he went on.

Elliot snapped his fingers. "Hey, less flappity-flap of the gums and more splashity-splash of the water."

Harry giggled and turned the tap, while Elliot snagged a filter from an upper cabinet and laid it on the counter.

"So did you have a look outside?" Elliot asked as he dug a scoop out of a drawer.

"Yep," Harry said as he turned off the water.

"Bet you're sorry now that you didn't get on that plane to St. Wherever, huh?"

“No way," Harry declared as he poured the water into the top of the coffee maker. "I'd much rather be freezing my ass off here with you and Dad, even if I am in a world of trouble."

Elliot took the can of coffee out of a cupboard and put it in front of Harry. "Four scoops of that," he said tapping the lid with his finger.

"Yes sir," Harry mumbled.

"You know, Harry," Elliot said, leaning on the counter, "I don't think this is going to be quite the nightmare you're imagining. Your dad is one of the most fair-minded people I know."

"To Holly, maybe."

"That's not true, and you know it," Elliot said, pointing his finger and sharpening his tone a small amount.

Harry paused and then nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, I know. I've just never dealt with Dad like this."

"Like I said," Elliot said, "it's probably not going to be as bad as you think."

Harry dropped a heaping scoop of grounds into the filter and then another. "For whatever it's worth, I'm actually more worried about how Dad's going to take it tahn what's gonna happen to me. I mean, you know how he is, right? He really beats up on himself."

Elliot nodded. "Yes, he does."

He dropped another scoop into the filter. "It's weird, but I sometimes think he likes it too. You know what I mean?"

A nasty shiver went down Elliot's spine as a different unpleasant memory surfaced — one of Toby this time. It was the night he had seen him in drag outside of one of the seedy clubs in the Meatpacking District. He had opted for that kind of shame and humiliation rather than feel the pain and sorrow of a broken heart, stupidly believing that it was a better alternative to drugs and alcohol. On the heels of that memory came the image of Toby's back and buttocks covered with bruises after he had gotten him out of that ugly red dress, and Elliot swept the thought away as quickly as he could.

"I do know what you mean," he finally said. "And all I can tell you is that he's much better about it than he used to be. Believe me when I say that I know."

"That's what Holly says too," Harry said, putting the final scoop of coffee in the filter and putting the lid back on the can.

Elliot closed his eyes. He wanted to believe that neither of his kids knew anything about that behavior, but Holly and Toby had very few secrets between them. He just hoped to God that Franco's was one of them. "She's right."

"I know she is," Harry said. "She's the one that got me to see it too."

"Oh yeah?"

“Yeah," Harry said, handing the can back to Elliot and turning on the coffee pot. "It's like... I can't remember when she said it to me or why, but once she told be that I really needed to let up on Dad because he had enough guilt about not being there when I was littler." He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "And when I heard her say that, that was kinda when I realized that the only reason I was being such a jerk to Dad was because Nan and Pop were being jerks to him, and I wanted to stop." He looked up at Elliot. "I mean, you and he have always been really good to me, and..."

Elliot approached and put his free hand on Harry's shoulder. "Listen to me, you," he said, "that you're even thinking about your father's feelings at a time like this is very kind and no small matter, but I want you to remember this too: you're Dad's a big boy and he's responsible for how he handles himself. Your job right now is to tell him what's going on back in California and do your part in helping clean up the mess. As for your Dad's feelings? Those are not your responsibility. If he's got guilt, he's got to deal with it. No matter what you may think, you really don't have control over how he feels."

"I just don't wanna..." he said, making an all-encompassing gesture with his hand.

Elliot squeezed Harry's shoulder. "You know about what happened with Kathleen last year, right?"

He nodded. Of course, he did. Elliot knew intuitively that Dickie had told him all about how his older sister had gotten arrested for breaking into someone's house and stealing jewelry from a couple on the Upper West Side. He was also sure that Harry had heard from Dickie about about all the drugs she had gotten into, the indiscriminate sex she was having, and the ultimate diagnosis of bipolar disorder that explained all this erratic behavior.

"That was a horrible time for everyone, especially me," he went on. "Her life and her safety were in constant danger and I couldn't do anything to stop or change it because she was sick. Actually, everything I tried to do about it made it worse. It was the most frightened and aggravated I had ever been where one of my children were concerned, but you know what?"

"What?”

"I didn't love her any less and I didn't blame her for the fact I was reacting badly," Elliot said, drawing Harry a little closer and slipping his arm around his shoulder. "And I promise you that your dad loves you that much too. Maybe more if that's possible."

Harry looked at the floor and swallowed. "He said he wouldn't promise not to get mad when he started asking questions today."

"He might get mad," Elliot acknowledged. "But he will get over it. You should know that this is not the worst thing he has ever been through, right?"

"I can guess," he said.

"You'd be guessing right," Elliot said.

Harry looked up again. "You don't think that Captain Cragen already said something to him yesterday, do you?"

Elliot shook his head. "No. Absolutely not. Cap's very good about that kind of thing."

Harry grimaced a bit. "I kinda wish he had," he said.

Elliot tapped the boy on the chest. "Trust me, your Dad is going to be much more appreciative to hear it from you."

"Hear what?" came Holly's voice from the hallway.

Harry quickly turned somber and stepped away from Elliot. Elliot stood up straight and met Holly's gaze as she walked into the kitchen scratching her head with both hands and yawning. Her blond hair was shaggy and messy from sleep. She had recently gotten it cut so that it stopped just past her shoulders. When it was washed and combed it was very flattering, but now she looked a bit like a scarecrow in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a t-shirt from a concert she had recently attended.

"Nothing," Elliot said. "We were just talking about how your dad can be a little hard on himself."

Her eyes widened. "Yeah, he can be a little bit hard on himself in the same way that you dance a little bit like a white guy, Elliot."

Harry tried his best not to laugh, but failed.

"Don't go hatin'," Elliot replied with a smile.

Holly stopped dead in her tracks and covered her face with her hands. "Oh my God," she groaned, "don't _ever_ say that again!"

Elliot bent his knees, hooked his free thumb into his armpit, and started swaying to the left and right. "You just wish you had moves this cool," he informed her.

"Aw shit, my eyes!" Harry cried, screwing them shut and holding up his hands in a warding off gesture. "I can't unsee that! I need to bleach my brain!"

"Oh, save that brain-bleaching for when he dances like that in front of your friends, Harry," Holly said with a shudder.

Elliot was still gyrating. "Aisha loves the way I dance," he said to her. "She joined me that one time, remember?"

"I think she was trying to save you from dying of embarrassment," she told him.

"What's there to be embarrassed about?" he queried, turning his back to them and jutting out his butt a bit more.

Holly and Harry were now howling with laughter, but all three of them went silent and still when they heard the screams coming from the bedroom.


	3. The Sins of the Father

_BANG! BANG!_  
  
_Toby knew that sound all too well. It was the penetrating, room-silencing knock of a gavel. But it was not just any hand driving that gavel. He looked up and sure enough, there she was — the cunt herself. Judge Grace Lima stared down at him from the bench as cold and emotionless as one of the heads on Easter Island. Her waxy pallor and the white hair stood out in sharp contrast to the black robe she wore._  
  
_"Mr. Beecher," she bellowed, "how dare you show up in my courtroom looking like this! What on earth were you thinking?"_  
  
_Toby looked down at himself and saw that he was clad in the red dress that he used to wear to Franco's. It hung sloppily on his shoulders and exposed a small strip of pale hairy thigh between the hem of the skirt and the top of the black stockings on his legs. He could feel his feet aching inside the clunky high-heeled sandals. He didn't need a mirror to know his face was a shocking mess of black eyeliner and bright red lipstick. A sweat broke out over his body and the shame washed over him. How could his attorney let him show up in court like this? He looked to his left and saw that he was seated alone at the counsel table. Once again, he had made the stupid mistake of acting in his own defense._  
  
_"I'm asking you a question, counsellor!" she boomed._  
  
_He opened his mouth to apologize, but instead of words, out came the smell of Wild Turkey. It filled the whole courtroom, and the judge's face twisted in disgust. He heard muttering at the prosecution's counsel table, and was horrified to see Vern Schillinger and his son, Hank, sitting there. Vern was dressed the robes and the pointed hat of a KKK grand wizard, listening and silently nodding while Hank, clad in an SS brownshirt, leaned in towards his father whispering something. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a dark red blot blooming and growing in the middle of Vern's robe. Hank had a small hole on the side of his head that Toby could see through. Sitting in the gallery behind them was Vern's other son, Andrew. His upper lip was covered in white powder and his eyes were dilated to the size of dinner plates._

 _"You're a disgrace, Mr. Beecher," Judge Lima proclaimed. "Nothing but a drunk and a killer, and your children deserve better than you."_  
  
_Yes, he knew it too._  
  
_"Now, do you have anything to say before the jury declares their verdict?" she asked._

 _Toby looked over at the jury box. Six Jonahs in blinding white Navy uniforms sat somberly in a row behind six Martas who each wearing an old-fashioned cameo of Genevieve's image. Again his mouth opened, this time to beg for clemency, but out of it came: "Jack and Jill went up the hill to smoke some marijuana. Jack got high, unzipped his fly, and Jill said 'We ain't gonna!'"_  
  
_"That's enough!" the judge yelled, slamming the gavel down again... except it wasn't a gavel anymore, but Gary's severed hand rolled into a tiny fist. She turned to the jury box and said, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, how do you find the defendant?"_  
  
_"Guilty," said all the Jonahs and Martas in unison._  
  
_"Mr. Beecher, you have been found guilty by a jury of my peers," the cunt declared, "and we're sending you back to where a prag like you really belongs."_  
  
_Toby felt his heart sink. He was going back to Oz for the rest of his life._  
  
_"Well, if you gotta go," echoed a disembodied voice belonging to Ryan O'Reilly, "you might as well go high."_  
  
_It was then that the spins began to hit him and he found himself leaning on the table trying to hold himself up. All ability to focus his thoughts or his vision disappeared and he dared not look at any wall or flat surface too long lest he start to see oily, black writing appear on it spelling Kathy Rockwell's name. On the other side of the aisle, the Schillinger men turned to glare at him as he tried to regain his balance. He turned and looked again at the chair next to him at the counsel table. It was no longer empty; Elliot was seated there now._  
  
_"Please, El! Tell the kids that I love them and that I'm sorry," Toby begged as the unseen bailiff secured his hands behind his back. His own voice sounded like it was coming from far away._  
  
_Elliot turned to look at Toby. There was no emotion on his face whatsoever._  
  
_"Elliot?"_  
  
_The blank stare on Elliot's face melted into a sneering, wolfish grin that was all too familiar._  
  
_"Toby, I love you," Chris Keller whispered his final words again..._  
  
  
  
Toby jolted awake screaming. For a few seconds, he was completely disoriented, but eventually reality caught him and set him down gently. He was naked and soaking with perspiration, but he was in his own bed and in his own apartment. He took a couple of shaky breaths and looked around him. The air was cold against his skin, but the light was bright and friendly. The ghosts of Prisoner #97B412's past slunk back to their respective graves to continue their long, uneasy rest. And although Jonah and Marta were the only ones from that dream who were still on this side of the dirt, they were not there in the room passing judgement anymore. There was no skull-crushing headache and no creepy writing coming out of the walls, so his sobriety was still intact. He heard a small knock on the door and heard the click as it opened slightly.  
  
"Toby?"  
  
His heart stopped for a moment as he saw Chris peering into the bedroom. The manipulative cunning prick had somehow cheated death and was now in his apartment with his children. Panic slapped at him and his breathing stopped.  
  
_NO!_  he thought as his eyes widened and his mouth went dry.  
  
"You okay, babe?" he asked stepping a little further into the room.  
  
Toby saw the sling, heard the term of endearment, and relaxed. Not Chris... Elliot. It was okay. Toby pushed out a shuddery sigh and nodded.  
  
"Dad?" came Holly's voice from behind the door.  
  
Toby looked down and hurriedly covered himself from the waist down. "It's alright, Hol!" he called.  
  
Elliot looked back over his shoulder. "He's okay, guys. Why don't you two set the table and we'll be right there, okay?"  
  
"Okay," Holly said after a pause.  
  
Toby closed his eyes and ran his hands over his damp hair. His heart was still galloping in his chest, but his breathing had slowed down some. He felt the mattress sink a bit on his right, and then a dry towel rubbing against the skin of his back and his neck. He opened his eyes and Elliot (not Chris) was there wiping his brow and his cheek.  
  
"Bad one this time, huh?"  
  
"Stop," he said quietly, putting his hand on Elliot's. "I'm really okay."  
  
Elliot's hand slid around the back of his neck. "You sure?"  
  
Toby sniffed and wiped his hair off his brow. "Yeah," he said, punctuating the word with a small, tight smile.  
  
Elliot leaned in and kissed him once on the forehead. "Coffee's ready."  
  
"Thanks," Toby said. "I'll be right out."  
  
Elliot nodded once and then got up and walked out the door, closing it behind him so that Toby could have some privacy. With the room to himself again, Toby tossed the towel in his hand onto the nightstand and pushed away the covers. The vinegary smell of night sweat was thick and gagging. Ordinarily, he would have opened the window so that the room and the sheets could air out, but as he saw the thick layer of snow on the ground, he knew that was out of the question. Hopefully, it would just go away after a while.  
  
Toby padded naked to the dresser, pulled open a drawer, removed a pair of sweatpants, and pulled them on over his bare hips and legs. Once they were on, he pushed the drawer shut with his knee and opened the one above it to get a shirt. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and paused. For an instant, the mustachioed nursery-rhyme chanting maniac he had been in Oz was glaring back at him, then the reflection returned to normal... if that was what you could call it. Christ, when was this going to stop? Wasn't he supposed to be on the other side of this psychological shit storm by now? Wasn't the end of the bad dreams supposed to be a dividend of staying sober, rebuilding his life and what was left of his family, and completing parole? Hadn't his behavior been good enough to guarantee that all those people would stop haunting him in his sleep or snatching the unguarded minutes and seconds away from his waking hours? He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and pulled a long-sleeved t-shirt on over his head and slipped his glasses on to his face.  
  
Upon opening the door, he paused before stepping out and listened to the conversation outside for a second.  
  
"How long has that been going on?" Harry asked, his voice almost obscured by the clank of cutlery being pulled out of a drawer.  
  
"It's never really stopped," Holly answered. There was a small thump as she set a glass or a plate on the table, and then another. "I hear him moaning in his sleep most nights, but this is the first time I've heard him scream his way out of a nightmare in a long time."  
  
"Me too," admitted Elliot. There was a clunk as the carafe went back into the coffee maker. "Usually I just shush him back to sleep, and it's over."  
  
"When I was younger, he used to think I crawled into bed with him because I was having bad dreams, but sometimes I did it because he was." Holly again. This time her words came out with a sigh.  
  
"Wow..." murmured Harry.  
  
Toby bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. He had never known that. He had always assumed he was her security blanket and not the other way around. He closed his eyes tighter and conjured up the voice of his AA sponsor telling him that eavesdropping was a great way to set himself up for the kind of thinking that would open the door for a drink. He relaxed his face, pushed out a sigh, and stepped out.  
  
All eyes turned to him as he came into view. It was Holly who finally broke the silence. "Hey, you okay Dad?"  
  
Toby went over to her and kissed her on the top her head, silently thanking her for being there for him. "I'm fine," he said with a small smile. "Sorry for ruining everyone's good time."  
  
"Oh hey, you actually saved us from Elliot's dancing," Harry said putting his hand over Toby's as he received a hug. "Thanks."  
Toby looked at Elliot over the rims of his glasses and hugged Harry a little tighter. "You subjected my children to your dancing?"  
  
Holly coughed out a laugh.  
  
"And her twice?" Toby continued, baring his teeth a bit.  
  
Elliot smiled innocently, and then Holly came to his rescue. "It's okay, Dad. We'll be mentally stronger for it," she said.  
  
The children began to laugh, and Elliot let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Thank you, Hol. You just saved my bacon."  
  
"Speaking of bacon," Toby said, letting go of his son and rubbing his hands together, "let's get breakfast going, shall we?"  
People sprang into action, and as Toby looked around at them getting out ingredients and napkins for the table, he sighed. The last bits of his nightmare vanished.  
  
But there was still another matter to get through after breakfast.

 

* * * *

  
The table was cleared, the dishes were drying in the rack, and the table scraps had been carried out to the dumpster by Holly who had bundled up to join Elliot for a walk outside ostensibly to 'survey the damage of the storm.' Toby and Harry had the place to themselves, and each person knew there was really no sense in stalling anymore. Even so, the tension in the air was thick enough to grasp as they sat at the table, each one waiting for the other to make the first move. Toby had tried all through breakfast not to guess what had caused Harry to run away, but the possibilities scrolled through his mind every time his eyes connected with Harry. Had he gotten someone pregnant? Booze and drugs? Suspended from school? Could be anything. Harry's eyes slid away from his father's every time they connected and Toby had not liked that one bit, but he knew that Harry was trying his best to stay composed and prepare himself mentally for the inevitable discussion. Now that moment had come, and there was longer no breakfast chatter or anyone jumping up from the table to get seconds for someone else to prevent it. The only sound of was that of a father and a son breathing in and out as they tried to suck up their respective courages.  
  
Toby ultimately ended up being the one who broke the stalemate. "Harry," he said, "would it make you feel any better if I told you that I'm more nervous about what you're going to say than you are?"  
  
Harry swallowed. "Not really," he said with a quivering voice "But I believe you when you say it."  
  
Toby nodded. That was something in the way of trust, he supposed. The last time they had really had a heart-to-heart like this, Toby had been told the truth about Elliot and their relationship. It had been awkward then for Toby, but not like this. "Look," he said after a second or two, "I know it's been getting rough with Nan and Pop lately, and I'm sure it's been rough for a while now. After all, ditching them at the airport and flying here to New York isn't just something you do after one bad spat. It's also not something you do on the spur of the moment either. So I know that things aren't going well there, but something really severe must have set you off. What is it?"  
  
Harry's eye twitched and both of them slammed shut.  
  
"Harry, I can't help you if you don't tell me!" Toby cried. "I know I haven't been there for you in this capacity before and you might as well be telling a stranger, but even so, you're my son and I love you! Don't you know that there's nothing you can say that would ever change that?"  
  
Harry opened his eyes and a tear spilled over the lower lid. A shuddery sigh escaped his chest.  
  
Toby reached over and took his son's hands. "Please."  
  
Harry swallowed and his adams apple went up and down like a monkey on a stick. "I just wanted to try it," he whispered.  
  
Toby squeezed Harry's hands. "Try what?"  
  
Harry squeezed his eyes shut tighter. "Being with a guy," he said. His voice had come just above a tint squeak.  
  
Toby finally exhaled, not knowing that he had been holding his breath the whole time. It all suddenly made sense... why Harry was acting out in school, why Jonah and Marta kept reporting his rebellious behavior to him with such spite, and why he was getting into so many fights and detentions. In a weird way, it was a relief. "Aw Christ, Harry," he sighed. "Is that what this is all about?"  
  
"Some of it," Harry said, pulling one of his hands free from Toby's grasp and grinding the heel of it into his face.  
  
Toby's stomach muscles tightened. There was more?  
  
"I don't know even know if I'm even gay or not," Harry said after a second or two of silence. "I mean, I just was wanting something... from someone... ." He looked at Toby with pleading eyes. "It's like... I wasn't getting anywhere with the girls," he went on. "None of them seem to be interested in me no matter what I do." He bit his lip. "And I just thought maybe the problem wasn't them. Maybe I was supposed to be with... a guy."  
  
"Are you even interested in guys?" he asked.  
  
Harry let out a strangled noise that was probably meant to be a laugh. "I'm not interested in anyone, really," he admitted. "I just got sick of hearing about how the other guys in school are getting to second and third base or even all the way home, you know?"  
  
Toby nodded again. Kids today still used that old metaphor? Incredible how somethings never changed.  
  
"And it was really weird to because some of them even talked about hooking up with other guys," he said. "Not out there in front of everyone, but still..." he added hurriedly.  
  
The same thing had gone on in prep school, and Toby was dragged back to that old feeling of squirming under sexual peer pressure. He even remembered feeling jealousy towards the boys who had 'gone rogue,' even if he didn't want what they had. Not then, anyway... or so he thought.  
  
"And, you know, like I said... I just wasn't getting anywhere with the girls," he went on. "So I... you know..."  
  
"You hooked up with another male student to see what it was like?" Toby said.  
  
"Yeah," he whispered, looking at the table top.  
  
He could see now a bit more where this was going, and pressed on. "And it freaked you out?" he asked.  
  
Harry closed his eyes and nodded. "We just kissed and... you know, touched. Nothing else happened, but still..."  
  
More pieces of the puzzle fell into place. "You wanted it to be just a one time thing that you both would forget about and it didn't quite work that way, huh?"  
  
Harry nodded. "He kept texting me and stuff... and I wanted him to stop."  
  
"Did you tell him to?"  
  
Harry nodded again, and his lip dove under his front teeth.  
  
"Were you mean about it?" A knot formed in Toby's stomach as he prayed to God that Harry had not.  
  
"I..." he began, looking up at Toby. It was interesting how, in that moment, the resemblance to his mother had vanished and Toby saw something closer to what looked like the man he had seen in the mirror staring back at him that morning. "I tried to be nice, but I didn't... think he was..."  
  
This was it. This was the rest that Harry had been holding back earlier. Toby braced himself for a story about how he was being bullied now for making out with this kid.  
  
"I... He..." He was choking on his words and his chin went to his chest.  
  
"What happened?" Toby said, putting a finger under his son's chin and raising it.  
  
Harry's face crumpled. "I didn't know he was going to kill himself," he finally said and then started to sob loudly with his forehead on his forearms.  
  
Toby closed his eyes, unable to take the way his world seem to have tipped over onto its side. Of all the things his son could have said, that was as far away from anything he could have expected. The awfulness of that moment was augmented when the image of of Chris Keller lying on the floor of the main quad in Emerald City, breathing his last breaths amidst a small gathering of other prisoners who were looking back at him with accusatory eyes, arose unbidden in his mind. He could feel his stomach rebel and try to expunge the meal it was digesting, but he fought to keep it still.  
  
Harry looked up, red-faced and puffy-eyed, and dove onto his father's shoulder. His arms went around Toby and hugged him fiercely. Toby held him and let him cry it out, trying his best not to shed tears of his own. Thoughts of Genevieve expiring in her car followed by ones of Chris going over the rail flooded into his mind, and he shoved them away violently. "I'm so sorry," he whispered as his son cried.  
  
"Dad, I didn't kill him, did I?"  
  
The question was so shocking, and hearing it come from his son's mouth was horrifying. But at least he did know the answer. "No, son. You didn't."  
  
Harry pulled away and met Toby's eyes. "No?" he asked, begging wordlessly for it to be true.  
  
"No," he said, rubbing the back of his son's hair. "You have no idea what else was going on in his life at that moment. For all you know, he did it because he couldn't face the reality of it either." Again, words were now in the air that he couldn't believe were being exchanged between him and his son. But there was no taking them back. His stomach lurched, and he grit his teeth to keep himself from being sick.  
  
Harry snatched a paper napkin from the holder in the center of the table and scrubbed at his face with it.  
  
"When did this happen?" Toby asked after the urge to vomit passed.  
  
"Last month," he said.  
  
He had been grumbling abot spending time with his grandparents in the Carribean then too.  Now Toby was starting to understand better why.  "You hooked up with him last month?" he asked.  
  
"No, he killed himself last month... over Thanksgiving. I found out about it when I got back home"  
  
Toby's heart started to ache for the other boy's parents.  Even if Gary had died at someone else's hand, he knew their pain.  "Why didn't you call me or talk to the school counsellor about this, Harry?  
  
"Because Nan and Pop can't find out about any of this! Idon't want to say anything to anyone at school because they'll eventually tell them. And I didn't call because I didn't want you to tell them either. I can't even cry in front of Pop or else he'll start calling me a names and telling me not to be a such a...."  
  
Toby's lip curled up in rage as a sour, metallic taste filled his mouth. He couldn't help it. He knew exactly what the word was that Jonah had used for boys who cried... and for their estranged, ex-con son-in-laws who were in relationships with other men.  
  
"I don't know what to do, Dad," Harry said as he grabbed for the crumpled paper napkin on the table and coiled it around his index finger. "I can't even think about going back to school in January! Everybody's still talking about it... and every time I think of his parents, I get sick inside."  
  
Toby didn't know what to do either. It was a lot at once, and he, like Harry, was now a gruesome jumble of unpleasant feelings. And no matter what he did, he just couldn't make all the memories of Chris Keller plunging to his death or Genevieve asphyxiating in their garage go away and stay gone. He couldn't turn of the tapes of Jonah and Marta chastising him for his son's willfulness. And now, with his son's last utterance, he couldn't stop thinking about that poor kid's parents.  
  
_Oh God, if you're there... help me!_  
  
"Listen," he said after taking a couple of breaths, "I'm here for you, and we'll figure this out together, okay? I promise we will."  
Harry nodded and a small sigh came from his mouth.  
  
Toby dislodged the crumpled up napkin from his son's fingers and took hold of his hand. "The hard part's done now, right? So we'll just take it one step at a time from there."  
  
Harry whispered. "I'm sorry, Dad."  
  
He tightened his grip a bit on Harry's hand. "Thank you for trusting me and telling me," he said. "I love you."  
  
Harry began to cry again. Toby drew him close again, and cringed as he realized that he desperately wanted to tell Harry that he understood... really understood how awful Harry felt. He wanted to tell him about what had happened in Oz, but he just couldn't make himself do it. Neither of his children knew much about what had gone down between him and Chris Keller and they knew nothing about how their relationship had come to such a violent and shocking end. The kid had just barely come around to accepting his father's sexuality, so how could he just unload all that on to Harry's shoulders at a time like this?  
  
He had said to Harry that the hardest part was done, but wished he could take that back.  
  
Bits of his nightmare came back to him.  
  
Apparently, the ghosts of his past weren't done with him yet.


	4. Faucet

"I think it's too cold to pack tight enough," Elliot said.

Holly looked up sadly with a shapeless handful of snow and shrugged. A second after the sly grin spread across her face, the air in front of Elliot's face was filled with snow crystals and the laughter of a sixteen year-old girl. He swiped his forearm across his face and only succeeded in getting his face wetter than it already was. 

"Laugh it up," Elliot said with a tight smile. "You're only getting away with this because I can't fight back. "

"Gotta take advantage while I can," she said, batting at the empty sleeve of Elliot's coat.

Elliot smiled and turned his attention back to the small group of kids a couple of blocks away who were trying to have a snowball fight but only succeeding in creating an icy cloud around them. At every other building on the street, there was someone were trying to clean off their stoop with a shovel or a wide broom. A team of about four young men were huddled around a car with its doors open trying to get it out of the middle of the road; their efforts only yielded the whirring sound of tires spinning uselessly and great plumes of exhaust. There were small clusters of twos and threes on the street watching the activity way Elliot and Holly were, but for the most part it was quiet... at least in Park Slope. Elliot wondered if things were still at a standstill elsewhere. Was Fin, who had opted to spend a night in the crib, looking out the window and shaking his head as he watched Lower Manhattan try their best to pretend it was business as usual? Was Olivia up there in Washington Heights trying to kick her perpetually broken furnace back to life? Had Kathy and the kids made it safely upstate to her parents' place? He hadn't heard from any of them last night or this morning and never assumed that no news was good news. Once he got back, he'd make a few phone calls. By that time, hopefully, Toby and Harry would be done talking. He could only imagine what the two of them were going through up in the apartment.

Holly gestured to the guys in the street trying to move the car. "They're never going to get that car unstuck, are they?"

Elliot shook his head. "Not without a minor miracle."

"You know that's gotta be happening all over the city right now, don't you?" she commented.

"Yep," he said, "and the people who can get their cars moving are not going very far."

"Think the trains are running at least?"

"Why? You got a hot date waiting in the city for you?"

"No, I don't have a hot date waiting in the city for me," she said, mimicking him with a nasal tone of voice. She paused for a second and then added, "Would be very nice I did, though."

Elliot snickered. Holly was a very different person from the one he had first met when he and her father had crossed paths. The intense, socially awkward little girl who was more comfortable with books and adults than she was with scary movies and kids her own age had given way to something that more closely resembled a normal teenaged girl with normal teenaged issues and moods. The reserved formality with which she had addressed people only four years earlier had melted into a more casual and animated style of interaction. She now cracked jokes, even about herself, and let comments and jokes made about her own odd personality traits roll off her back. Elliot didn't know whether to attribute it to a major breakthrough in her therapy, the good relationship she had forged with Elliot and his kids, or just the base-level realization that her father was finally home for good. Perhaps it was a combination of all three, but either way it had been a delight to watch her emerge from behind her emotional and psychological wall. 

That was also of the reason it pained him to be laying a little trap for her too.

As his first cup of coffee kicked in, odd things were starting to occur to him. Not bad things, but odd. Last night, he'd been relieved to see that she and Harry, who normally greeted each other with little more than a cool nod upon Harry's arrival, had actually met each other halfway across the hall and stopped shy of giving each other a hug. That was one thing. He'd also been so delighted watching Toby and his children working as a team to get Harry settled in to realize that Holly had been the only person thus far who had not asked Harry what the hell he was doing in New York or how he had managed to make it here only hours before a blizzard immobilized the city. Even Fin and the Captain, who had little more than a nodding acquaintance with Beecher's kids, had asked variations of these questions but she hadn't. She hadn't even asked if their grandparents had any clue that he was here instead of winging his way to warmer climates with them. That was very odd given how much she had laid into him at Thanksgiving about his not wanting to go. What had finally tipped him off, though, was when breakfast was finished and he had suggested that they go for a walk outside to see what kind of shape the neighborhood was in. He had given her a quick but noticeable wink, and she had winked back at him as she voiced her agreement. That was when he knew that she knew more than she was saying. 

_What is it you're not telling me, Holly?_

For many years, the prevailing theory in the squad room was that whenever a group of teenagers were suspects, there was often a ringleader or two who were supported by small group of accomplices. The accomplices tended to fall into one of two categories: the soulless jerks who were often just as devoid of conscience as the ringleader, and the tagalongs whose involvement was attributable either to peer pressure in one form or another or just flat-out ignorance of the possible consequences. Those belonging to the second type were the ones you wanted to identify get in that interrogation room as fast as possible because they were the ones who were most likely to spill the beans. And while they often started out tough and arrogant, all it took was catching one little incongruence in their story or finding a chink in their façade, and they would almost always transform into very compliant and talkative witnesses. Once that point had been reached, Fin would refer to them as 'faucets.' _All it takes with those little punks,_ he had said, _is one good twist and everything comes gushing out, usually with a lotta tears too._

It was an ugly thing to say, but it was true. And it usually took one of two things to turn a kid into a faucet: stark terror or guilt.

He knew Holly well enough to know which one of those two to select. 

_Don't even think about it, El!_ warned the part of his mind that was in tune with Olivia. _This isn't a case; it's just domestic drama!_

That was true, but it still didn't change the fact that a kid in an affluent San Diego suburb was dead and another kid from the same area had run away to New York City and was under his roof.

For an instant he was transported back to the scene that had erupted in the courtroom as the ADA who was prosecuting his daughter presented the necklace she had stolen to the judge. Once again, he could feel the weight of the accusatory stare Kathleen's attorney was giving him, hear Kathleen's furious screams as they hauled her back to her cell, and feel the wretched stinging on his cheek as Kathy smacked him as hard as she could across the face. 

_Ready to go through another round of that?_ Olivia asked. _And this time with Toby and his kids?_

No, he wasn't.

_Then don't do this._

On the other side of the country, two parents were spending their Christmas grieving their dead son. 

Both the cop and the father in him just couldn't leave that alone. 

He made his choice, and said a quick prayer that it didn't add up to more than a spit in the ocean.

"Can you imagine how many people's Christmas plans have gotten messed up by this?" he asked benignly. "I mean, not just the people here in the New York but also anyone who was coming in or out of here. All three airports shut down around nine o'clock last night."

Holly nodded and hummed her agreement. 

"Lucky for Harry that he got in before that happened," he went on, pretending to study the vacant sky. "Still, I dunno what he was thinking flying into LaGuardia. No non-stops to that airport from San Diego. Can you imagine what would have happened if he had gotten stuck for a few days in a strange city at Christmas time?" He tapped her once on the shoulder. "He could have stranded on his layover for days with his money getting scarcer by the hour while he competed with other stranded New York-bound travelers for a seat on the first available flight." 

Holly's gaze dropped to the ground. "Uh-huh," she replied. 

"Actually, I don't think that would have happened at all," Elliot went on. "He's only fourteen, so someone would have eventually spotted him and wanted to know why he was alone in that airport and who was responsible for him. Next thing he would have known, his ass would have plunked right on a plane back to San Diego and your grandparents."

The sound of her swallow was audible even over the buzz of tires in the street and the bickering of kids further up the road. It was almost funny how cliché her response was. He knew he had her then, but even so, Elliot had to admit to a mild surprise when she finally looked up at him with sharp intensity. 

"Are you ever not a cop?" Holly asked.

Elliot shook his head. "Sorry."

"You did this kind of thing with your own kids too?" she asked, her gloved index finger wagging between the two of them.

"More times than I can count," he said with a tight smile.

She regarded him with a raised eyebrow. "Desk duty must really be killing you, huh?"

"Holly, let's not banter, okay?" he said, softening his tone. He wanted some answers from her and knew that if he didn't reel it in a bit he was going to get met with hostile silence. "You seem to be the only person Harry's crossed path with who doesn't seem surprised to see him here. And if you know why he's here, then you know what happened in San Diego."

Holly stuffed her hand into the pocket of her coat and pulled out an open pack of cigarettes. The lighter was packed into the cellophane that was wrapped around it. She bounced it in her hand until a cigarette popped up out of the opening in the top and she extracted it with her teeth. The expert way that she did this made Elliot's jaw drop open.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he said, feeling his eyebrows knit together.

"I just have one every once in a while when I'm stressed," she answered with the cigarette tucked in the corner of her mouth.

Elliot shook his head and made an exasperated groan as he snatched the cigarette out of her mouth and flicked it away. She watched it drop into a snow bank five feet away and then gave Elliot a pained look.

"Hand 'em over," he said, holding out his hand with the palm up. 

Holly's face fell into an 'I'm-caught-bust-me' look that he had seen a thousand different times on a thousand different faces. Her hand went back into her pocket and removed the pack and lighter. As soon as daylight hit them, her fingers tightened around the pack and her hand began to tremble very slightly. A second later, they relaxed and she slapped the ruined pack into his open hand. The look on her face was chillingly calm, and Elliot didn't like it one bit. 

"There," she said. "I suppose I need to tell on myself to Dad now, huh?"

Elliot regarded the smushed packet of cigarettes in his palm for a second and then hurriedly pocketed them. For some reason, he didn't want to look at them anymore. "We'll worry about that later," he said, removing his hand from his pocket. "For now let's just stick with your brother."

"I never told him that maybe he should run away!" she cried. "All I ever said to him was that maybe it'd be better if he came to live with us, and that's it. For whatever it's worth, he said that he wished he could, but I didn't think he'd do it within a month!"

There. The faucet was open. "How long have you known he was going to run away?"

She sighed and her breath plumed out in a hazy white cloud. "I didn't know until yesterday morning that he was actually going to do it, but he had sent me a message on Facebook the night before saying today's the day and telling me what his arriving flight was going to be," she said. "By the time I had read it, I had assumed he was already en route."

"When was that?" 

"About seven in the morning," she said. "All I could do after that was check the flight tracker on a computer at school."

"Did he get in touch with you on his layover?"

She shook her head.

"And you didn't try to call him or anything before he got on the flight from there to New York?"

"Tried to text him, but I didn't hear back until he landed.

He hadn't seen Holly's number in the call history on Harry's cell phone. Now he wished he had bothered to check his text messages. "You know, Holly," Elliot said after he shook away his oversight, "this isn't the kind of thing that someone just does on a whim. How did all this get started?"

Holly kicked at the snow, and her foot left a deep gouge in it. "After Harry left to go back to San Diego, Dad told me that I had to apologize to him for how I acted. So I sent him a text message saying that I was sorry." She looked back at the boys trying to get the car moving. They had taken a break and were stepping away from the car, swearing at their misfortune. "I expected him to call me a bitch and tell me to stick my apology where the sun didn't shine," she continued, "but instead he sent one back telling me to call him. I did, and that's when he told me about Corey."

Corey. So that was his the kid's name. "What did he say?"

"He told me about what happened between them, then told me he was dead. She wiped at her lips (something that Elliot had seen a lot of jonesing smokers do) and went on. "He said he was scared and I kept telling him to talk to Dad. He got mad and said that wouldn't because he didn't want Dad to say something to Nan and Pop." He gaze returned to Elliot and sharpened. "And I didn't want that either."

Elliot had heard enough about Jonah and Marta to understand why that was the case. He'd also seen the way Toby's face fell into unadulterated shame after he had gotten off the phone with them. "How come you didn't say anything to your father?"

"Oh come on, Elliot," she groaned as she looked skyward. "Would you give someone who barely trusted you in the first place a reason to regret it?"

She had a good point there. The faces of a few witnesses and rape victims who felt that their confidence had been betrayed by him drifted through his mind as her words sank in. 

"Besides," she added, tilting her head a bit and letting her lower jaw slide out a little, "you think Dad wouldn't flip out hearing about this after what he went through with Mom? And with Chris Keller? I'll bet you five bucks he's up there with Harry wringing his hands over it right now."

Elliot's eyes widened. "You know about what happened to him?" He realized it was too late to take the question back the moment it left his mouth.

"I know everything!" she yelled. "I know what he did to Dad in Oswald! I know that he was tried for murdering some guy up in Jersey and was supposed to die in the electric chair until Dad got him off! And I know that he killed himself right in front of Dad and everyone else in there too!"

Elliot noticed that the men in the street had turned to look at her, and so had a few of the other people on the street trying to clear their stoops. "Lower your voice," he ordered.

She looked over her shoulder briefly and then scowled at him. "I know everything," she repeated a little more quietly. She regarded him for a second and then her lips pulled back into a smirk. "I even know that you look like him."

The words hit Elliot like an uppercut. "How?" he finally managed to ask.

She looked at Elliot as if he were being deliberately thick. "Ever used the internet before? Or been to a library?" she asked, spreading her arms and leaning into him. "I mean, really! There were newspaper articles about the trial, Elliot! Hell, there was even one that got written when Dad got him off on a technicality! It didn't mention Dad or the law firm, but I knew it was him!"

The shock to his system was nasty. She'd researched Keller like some adopted child trying to find out about her real parents! Had that been before or after Harry had told her about what had happened to Corey?

Did it matter? 

For the first time, he began to feel regret that he had started this conversation with Holly in the first place. The Olivia in his mind had been right all along. Had he mistakenly thought Holly was just a faucet? Christ, she was the fucking Hoover Dam, holding back huge amounts that could never be controlled and contained so simply again! 

"Now, do you have any other questions or are you finally done interrogating me?" she asked angrily. 

"No," he answered. "I don't have any other questions." The feeling was not too different from the one he had whenever Cragen called him on the carpet for something. 

"Good," she snapped. "Then I'll just go upstairs and get my talk with Dad over with now, okay?"

Elliot watched her turn to go, not realizing until that moment that he'd been fingering the crumpled up pack of cigarettes in his pocket. The memory of the blank look on her face as she crushed them slashed across his mind and it felt like a slap across the face. 

Like Kathy slapping him across the face. 

_Aw fuck!_

"Holly!" Elliot called out.

She stopped at the top of the stoop and turned around, meeting his eyes with a well-banked fire in her own. "What?" she demanded.

He turned and looked up at her, trying not to conjure up Kathleen's furious outbreak in the courtroom and failing. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have done that to you."

Holly stayed in her place, glaring at him for a minute or two. For a moment, there was nothing but silence. The young men who had been trying to move the car in the middle of the street drifted back to the it with renewed resolve and shouts of determination. The engine cranked over and a team of them assembled behind the car with their hands on the trunk. 

"Ready?" said one of them. "One! Two! _Three!_ "

Tires whirred and snow flew from beneath the wheels. 

"Back!" shouted the driver out the window.

The group broke off and stepped to the side. There was a _thunk_ sound as the car was thrown into reverse. The whirring sound revved up again.

"I realize that you had a tough decision to make and I understand why you didn't say anything to anyone," Elliot said. He wiped at his face, hoping it would also make the unpleasant memories go away. "And I know you weren't trying to hurt anyone... least of all your father."

 _Thunk!_ went the trapped car's gearshift. The team took up their places again. The engine revved up again. 

"Hell, I'm even sorry I took your cigarettes away from you," he added, extending his arm in her direction. "How's that?"

Holly's features softened slightly and she came down one step. "I'm sorry too," she said, looking at the ground. "I know that you just want to make sure no one's in trouble. Especially the people you care about."

Something tugged at the corner of his eye and he blinked to control it. "Yeah, exactly."

Holly came down one more step. "I shouldn't have brought Chris Keller up like that too. I'm sure it hurt your feelings."

That eye twinge came, and Elliot screwed them both shut for a second before approaching the stoop. "Kiddo," he said, "I worked that part out for myself a while back. And so did your Dad." 

Holly came down one more step. "Yeah?"

"Mmm-hmm," he said, putting one foot on the lowest stair that was exposed. 

"I hope so," Holly muttered. She shook her head and met Elliot's eyes. The fire had died down to embers. "Please don't tell Dad that I know about him."

Elliot smiled wanly. "Holly, I'd replace your cigarettes in front of your dad before I did that."

A smile turned up the corners of her mouth. 

"We're cool?"

Teeth appeared in the grin and her eyes closed. "Yeah, we're cool."

'Good," he said. "Because right now, we all need to be there for your brother."

"And Dad,' she added, her tone sharpening a bit.

"Yes," Elliot added, "him too."

They met on the second riser and her arms went around him. His good one went around her, and he buried his nose in her wool hat. She was right as rain. Toby needed them just as much as Harry did, and whether he understood it fully or not, she was doing her part too. 

In the street, there was a chorus of excited whoops. They separated and watched as the three guys who were behind the stuck car began to trot along side of it before opening the doors and diving inside. Three doors slammed shut simultaneously and the car continued to trundle along the snowy street. 

"Well," Holly said as they watched it go, "there's your minor miracle."

"Guess so," Elliot agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I feel I should explain part of why things are moving slowly with My Little Runaway. I did say things were busier at my job, that I had a recent vacation and also a few dates (all of which tied up my weekends). There is also another reason. I'm taking the story in a slightly different direction from the one I had intended when I started, and it's necessitated me getting rid of a lot of what I had written and starting again fresh. I want to say that the lesson in this is to maybe post the story after it's finished the way that Dr. Squidlove did, but having it as a serial kept me on task. Anyway... I'm sorry if I've kept anyone on pins and needles. Trust me... I'm not dropping the ball. :)


	5. Big Bro

With his cell phone pressed to his ear and his eyes closed, Harry listened to what his grandfather had to say.  "I know," he finally said in response.  "I was wrong to do that. Dad and I talked and we agreed that I need pay you back for the money you spent on the trip to St. Maarten."

Sitting next to him with his hand on his son's forearm, Toby nodded. 

"I'll figure it out, Pop!" Harry said.  He had opened his eyes now, and the intensity of his voice had gone up a notch. 

Toby tightened his grip on his son's arm very slightly and mouthed the word 'easy'.

"No, he's not going to; I am!"

A couple of seconds passed, and Harry's features darkened.  "No, I'm not going to put him on the phone," he declared. 

Toby held out his free hand to take the phone.  Harry scowled at him and jerked his arm free from Toby's grip. 

"Because you're not going to blame this on him the way you blame everything else on him!"  Harry yelled. 

"Harry!" Toby whispered.

"It's not his fault, you stupid old man!"

That was all he could take. He had no interest in watching one half of a screaming match.  "Harry, stop!"  he said a little louder.

"Hey, I've got a great idea for how to not waste any more money on trips," Harry snarled after another period of silence had elapsed. "Don't bother coming out here to get me 'cause I'm not going to go back with you if you do!"

"Harry!" Toby shouted.

" _NO!  I FUCKING HATE YOU!_ " Harry screamed before he snapped his phone shut and flung it at the air mattress on the floor. 

Toby seized Harry's wrist.  "That's enough!" he snapped.

"Jesus, Dad, don't you get it now?"  he cried.

He did get it, but he wasn't going to allow Harry the luxury of a tantrum no matter how much turmoil he was feeling.  "We don't throw things around here, and we don't drop the F-bomb on your grandfather no matter what he says,"  Toby said sternly. He had given the exact same lecture to Holly once before.  From her, this kind of behavior towards Jonah (while still unacceptable) wasn't completely unexpected, but he never imagined he would be giving to the kid Jonah had raised.  Although he still felt sympathy for his son's predicament and was outraged to discover that Jonah was indeed slandering him, he shuddered at the thought that this was the way he was talking back to them when he was back in California.

"I'm sorry, Dad, but…"

"Shh!"  Toby held up the index finger of his other hand.  "Just... just go in my room and cool down.  We'll talk more later, okay?"

"Dad, I..." he began.

The raised index finger pointed at the door behind him.  "My room.  We'll pick this back up when neither one of us is wound up, okay?"  He hoped sounded comforting and tried to smile a bit, but suspected that both efforts were visibly half-hearted.

Harry sighed and looked defeated.  "Fine," he said twisting his arm so that he could be released from Toby's grasp.

Toby let him go.  Harry stood up and left.  It was only after Toby heard the soft click  of the door closing that the tears began to burn in the corners of his eyes.  In the kitchen, Toby's cell phone began to ring.  He didn't even need to look at it to know who the caller was.  He closed his eyes and let it ring until the voicemail picked up the call and asked for a name and a message after the tone.  In the quick beat of silence, Toby said a small prayer that Jonah would not leave a message.  He pushed his glasses up with his fingertips and ground the heels of his hands into the corner of his eyes.  Everything hurt, and his breakfast was still trying to escape. 

_ Jesus, Dad, don't you get it now? _

Oh yeah.  He got it, alright.  He had gotten it long before.  The trouble was that he had promised his son that he would help him do something about it, but the truth was that he didn't even know where to start.

_ Nan and Pop can't find out about any of this! _

If only he _could_ tell them... even if he could just leave out the part about the sex and just tell them that a friend had committed suicide.  Jonah and Marta may have given a little more emotional leeway in light of that information, but because they were also big on formalities, they would have wanted to make a visit with Harry to the dead kid's family to express their condolences.  That would have been worse for Harry because this kid wasn't really a friend, was he? 

_ Dad, I didn't kill him, did I? _

_It's not your fault, Harry,_ said the ghost of Chris Keller. _See, what happened is that you inherited your daddy's lethal dick which destroys anyone you have sex with if you're not in love with that person.  He can tell you all about it... and he really oughta, y'know? 'Cause after all, you should know family history, kid._

"Shut the fuck up, Chris," Toby whispered into the empty room. He was disgusted with how tiny and craven the words sounded. 

Toby's cell phone beeped.  Jonah had left a message after all.  Shit.

_ Hey, I've got a great idea for how to not waste any more money on trips ― don't bother coming out here to get me 'cause I'm not going to go back with you if you do! _

Oh, they were going to spend that money.  No question about it.  They were also going to want Toby, not Harry, to reimburse them for it along with the expenses for the trip to the Caribbean that had gone up in smoke.  And Toby knew that he would have probably coughed up the money for the sake of peace.  Harry, naturally, would have been insulted (and rightly so) and that would have damaged their already frail relationship beyond repair.  It probably also would have outraged Elliot and driven a wedge between him and Holly.  Having capitulated like that and brought out the unvarnished disappointment in three people who loved him, he would have neither the self-respect nor the energy to stop Jonah and Marta from taking him back to California. 

Toby shut his eyes and scanned the frequencies of his mind for the steady voice of his AA sponsor, Chet, who always managed to say something that got him to stop doing these kinds of mental gymnastics. He knew that he should have been calling Chet instead, but picking up his phone meant having to also hear Jonah's message.  There would be no way around it.  And besides, it was likely Chet wasn't going to answer today.  He was one of the MTA's head maintenance engineers and was therefore busy doing his part to get the city out from under the massive snowfall.  Moreover, a part of Toby already knew that Chet would have let him get five minutes into his sob story before interrupting him with the usual question ― which was: "And what actions are you taking, Toby?"  As annoying as it was to hear it, Toby had discovered over the course of time that he actually didn't mind that question.  Chet was one of the few people who had helped to instill in him a sense of responsibility for how his life went. 

He could almost see the man's silvery-white hair and his leathery face in his mind when the cunt bellowed from beyond sleep's wall: _You're a disgrace, Mr. Beecher! Nothing but a drunk and a killer, and your children deserve better than you._

Chet's image fled in fear and the judge appeared in its place and nodded once before vanishing too. Toby snatched the nearest coffee cup and squeezed it in a death grip, wishing he had never told his son not to throw things and not to drop the F-bomb.  Right now, he was desperate to smash it against the floor while a torrent of obscenities issued forth from his mouth. 

_Do it!_ cajoled the crazy man from deep within him. _Come on, man!  You know ya wanna!  Rage is evil and evil is sin, but sins are forgiven so let that rage in!_

Toby screwed his eyes shut tighter.

_Or maybe you wanna pour a couple of fingers of bourbon in there instead?_ suggested the most sinister voice of them all... his own when he was drunk. 

Toby dropped the cup as if it were a burning lump of coal, and brought his hands to his face.  A single sob escaped his chest, and he prayed that Harry didn't hear it from the other side of the bedroom door.  One more was on its way out when he heard the key rattling in the front door.  He looked up, feeling absurdly guilty, and snatched a napkin from the holder on the table.  He wiped at his face with it, picked up the coffee cup, and headed back into the kitchen.  He drew in a deep breath and pushed away all the nasty mental voices as he emptied his lungs.  For a moment, there was quiet… but no peace.

 

****

 

Elliot opened the hallway closet and collected the shovel from its interior.  He had purchased it at an inflated price a day or two before the snow was expected to hit, telling Toby that it was just as much a necessity as extra groceries.  He was expecting Toby to dispute that point by reminding him that it was the building supervisor's responsibility to clear the stoop, but instead Toby had only bemoaned the prospect of seeing Elliot waving at him from the window of a warm apartment while he slaved away in the freezing cold.  Elliot had looked back at him with a sly grin and reminded him that there was a third person in their home who had both the benefits of youth and two working arms in her favor.  Toby's own sneaky grin had appeared then, and he told Elliot that he loved him.  Now, as he handed the shovel to Holly who took it from him with a half-hearted smile, Elliot felt a bit ashamed of himself.  She had agreed to clear the stoop if he promised not to say anything to Toby about the cigarettes, and he had agreed against his own better judgement.  He never would have struck such a bargain with his own kids regardless of whether or not Kathy was in a fragile emotional state.  But things were different now.  He had been softened by the thought of how rotten Toby was going to be feeling after Harry told him about Corey.  And just like the kids, Elliot knew that Toby was going to be torturing himself after he and his son got done talking.  The possibility of adding fuel to the fire seemed unnecessary and cruel.  After all, Holly was right about one thing; her dad needed care just as much as her brother did right now. 

As he pulled his glove off with his teeth and snatched the wool hat off his head, Elliot caught a glimpse of Toby in the kitchen rinsing out his coffee cup.  He appeared to have come through the big talk unscathed, but there was something about the way his jaw was set that reminded him of the way Holly's had done the same a few minutes earlier.  It was a little off-putting.  "Hey, you still in one piece?" he asked as he unzipped his coat. 

Toby set the cup down in the drying rack and leaned on the edge of the sink.  "Throw them in the trash, please."

Elliot flinched. "Huh?"

"The cigarettes you took from my daughter," Toby said, closing his eyes.  "Just throw them in the trash, okay?"

"How..."

"Her friend Kelly told me last week that she's still smoking," Toby interrupted.  "Now, please just do it and I'll deal with it later."

Elliot did as he was told.  When he looked back, Toby was facing the other way but his eyes were still closed. "Where's Harry?" he asked.

"He's cooling down in my room," Toby answered. "And I'm trying to cool down in here."

"You alright?"

"Oh sure," Toby answered back glumly. "I just heard my son who's confused about his sexuality tell me that he thought he was responsible for some other kid's suicide, and then less than ten minutes later I heard him telling the man who raised him that he fucking hated him." He ran his palms over his head and down his face.  "I don't know which unsettled me more.  Hearing what had happened to him or hearing him talk to Jonah like that.  It's like, either way it just doesn't seem like my kid."

Elliot nodded.  He knew exactly what Toby was talking about.

"Am I horrible for wishing that there was something else to blame it on?"  he said.

"Something like what happened with Kathleen, you mean?" Elliot asked, his lips thinning and his eyebrows going up.

Toby stood up straight, eyes wide with shock.  "Jesus, no!  That's not what I meant!"

"Oh, come on," Elliot said, slipping out of his coat.  "Toby, you'd hardly be human if you weren't thinking it."

Toby was frozen for a second or two, then each of his hands snatched a fistful of hair.  "Aw fuck!" he cringed. 

Elliot draped his coat over a kitchen chair and then headed for Toby.  "Stop doing that," he said, digging the fingers of his free hand into one of Toby's fists until it let go of his hair. The other one let go on its own.  "I mean it, stop."

"Elliot please, I didn't..." 

Elliot touched Toby's lips with the pad of his index finger and shushed him.  "You're not horrible for wishing there was some kind of disease to blame it on."  He took his finger away and touched the tip of Toby's nose with his own.  "I don't think there's a parent in the world that hasn't had that thought.  But believe me when I tell you that it's no easier when there is a disease to blame."

Toby's face crumpled and he peeled off his glasses before diving on to Elliot's good shoulder.  Elliot held him and rubbed small circles into his back.  "Listen to me, you," he said, "you can't use any of this as a license to beat yourself up. Teens do stupid shit; they're supposed to. And when they do, you can't blame yourself every time.  Hell, you can't even blame yourself this time, Toby."

"I'm trying," Toby mumbled.

"Sure you are," he said.  "Good news is that although this hurts like hell, you're not failing either those kids or yourself. Take it from a guy who deals with parents who have to bail their kids out of jail for selling their asses on the street to feed their addictions and kids who have no remorse whatsoever for raping a classmate."  He put his hand under Toby's arm and pushed him back a little until they were eye-to-eye.  "I also deal with children who are thrown out and left for dead over less than what yours are going through.  Sure, one is smoking and one's fighting with the people who raised him because he isn't fitting their mold." He shrugged and offered a half-smile.  "But that's pretty normal from where I'm sitting."

Toby shook his head.  "I just don't know what to do," he said. 

"Well, what have you done?"

"I just listened and told him I loved him."

"Ever occur to you that maybe that was what he needed right then?"

Toby nodded. 

"What else?" Elliot asked.

"I told him he needed to call his grandparents and take responsibility for what he did at the airport," Toby sighed.  "I also said he didn't have to tell them about the kid who died."

"And did he?"

"Yeah, but then it turned ugly," Toby said.  "He told them he wasn't going back to San Diego with them and called Jonah a stupid old man. Said he fucking hated him."

Elliot spread his hands.  "And you sent  him to the room so that you both calm down.  Sounds like good parenting to me."  He leaned in a bit.  "And regardless of how bad it's getting between him and his grandparents, he did what you asked knowing it was the right thing to do.  Hell, that he even got in touch with us yesterday after what he did counts for something, Toby. Really, you don't need me to tell you any of this."

"Yeah I do," Toby said, thumbing away a tear.  "'Cause I forget." 

"We all forget," he said.  "Luckily we don't all forget at the same time."

Toby smiled a bit and forced out a laugh.

"And that kid who's shoveling the walk downstairs," he added.  "Don't forget her. She may still be smoking, but she's looking out for you more than anyone else in this whole mess."

Toby looked at the trash can.  "I wish she'd look out for herself too."

Elliot hooked his finger under Toby's chin and directed it back to him.  "Toby..."

Toby held up his hands and nodded.  "I know, I know."  He put his glasses back on.  "I just hope she's also willing to look out for Harry too."

A knowing smile surfaced on Elliot's face.  "Oh, I think you'd be surprised."

There was a knock at the front door.  The two men looked at it and back at each other with the same expression of confusion.

"I don't think she'd be finished by now," Toby said.

"Yeah, me either," Elliot said as he walked over to the door. "Holly?" he called.

"Yes it's me!" came a squeaky falsetto from the other side of the door ― one that clearly belonged to a man. 

Confusion was momentarily replaced with alarm as Elliot peered through the peephole.  Behind him, he heard Toby take a few nervous steps forward.  "What the..."

"Who is it?" Toby asked rushing up until he was almost standing on Elliot's heels.

Elliot said nothing but unbolted the door and pulled it open.  Dickie was standing there with a large backpack slung over his shoulder.  The steel blue eyes that he shared with his father stared back from a face that was red from the cold.  "Hiya Dad!" he hailed.

"Dickie, what are you doing here?" Elliot asked, his mouth agape and his eyes wide.

"I heard this is where you drop off spare winter clothes for poor refugees from California," he said, taking the backpack off his shoulder and holding it up for inspection.  His eyebrows went up and he leaned forward a bit, a smile touching the corners of his mouth. "Can I come in?"

"Yes, of course you can!" said Toby, as he nudged Elliot aside.  "Hi!"

"Hi Toby!" he said, dropping the backpack inside the door and giving him a hug.  "Merry Christmas!" 

Toby smiled. "Merry Christmas to you too!'

As Elliot closed the door, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that his son was here in Brooklyn instead upstate with Kathy. Even so, he noticed that it was the first time that morning that Toby had genuinely smiled. 

"Is that who I think it is?"  came a voice from down the hallway.

"If you think it's the Grinch, then yeah it is," answered Dickie as he let go of Toby.

"Big Bro!" exclaimed Harry as he bolted out of the bedroom and into Dickie's embrace.  A few seconds later, Harry was jabbing him in the sides with small punches, and Dickie was grinding his fist into the boy's hair.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Harry asked and he squirmed out of Dickie's grasp.  "I thought you were heading upstate."

_Yeah, so did I,_ Elliot thought as he closed the door behind him. He realized then why Holly was asking about the trains in the city and shook his head. _That kid_ , he thought. _She's even surprising me when it comes to looking out for Harry_.

"Little weather delay," he said in a voice that sounded exactly like his father's. "Here," he said as he collected the backpack from the floor. "Brought you a Christmas present.  Why don't you open it now?"

"What is it?" Harry asked as he pulled open the zipper.  As daylight hit the contents of the backpack, he burst out laughing. 

"Don't ever show up here in the winter again without a coat or I'll kick your ass," he said.

"You're the best!" Harry said, as he gave Dickie another hug.  The kid was positively glowing.  It was the happiest Elliot or Toby had seen him look since he had gotten to New York.

Dickie let him go. "Go get that stuff on and then we'll go throw your sister in a snowbank."

Harry looked at Toby. "Can I?"

Toby nodded.  "Sure you can."

Without another word, Harry took off to Toby's bedroom, stopping by his own luggage to snatch up a pair of shoes.    

"There's also a pair of warm socks in there!" Dickie called after him.  With that he turned to Elliot with raised eyebrows.  Young adulthood was settling early but nicely on his features, and Elliot noticed for the first time that he was starting to look like a younger version of Kathy's father. The adults in his life ― including Toby, Olivia, and his mother ― still felt a little weird about calling him Dickie after he turned eighteen, but since that was how he had continued to introduce himself, it had stuck.  "No hug from you, Dad?"

Elliot shook his head trying to reset his brain, and then smiled as he wrapped his one good arm around his kid.  "Hi," he said warmly. 

"Sorry to catch you off guard like this," he said. 

"Yeah, if memory serves,  you're supposed to be upstate with your mother and a couple of your sisters, right?"

"Well, I played sick," Dickie admitted as he let go of his father and started rubbing his stomach.  "You know how that food poisoning gets around during the holidays."

"Dickie!" Elliot said sharply as his face fell in disappointment.

"Dad!" he shot back as he glanced over at the bedroom, at Toby, and then back again to Elliot in one sweep.  The look on his face clearly communicated that he was also up to speed on recent events. 

Elliot sighed, knowing there was no other way to play it now.  "You're staying at home?"

"Yeah."

"You have food up there?"  Toby asked.

Dickie grinned broadly.  "Leave it to the master chef to worry about food," he chuckled.  "Yeah, I'll be fine until the delis open up again. They also seem to be moving a little faster in Queens with the snow removal than they are here in Brooklyn.  F-train's running too. It's on a delayed schedule, but it's running."

"Dickie, I still can't believe..."  Elliot began.

"Dad, I'm eighteen years old, for Christ's sake!"  he huffed.  "You really think I can't handle being at home by myself? I mean, come on!  It's not like I'm not planning any wild parties or anything.  And besides, nobody could get to them even I were' "

"I was going to say I can't believe you lied to your mother like that," Elliot replied coldly.

Dickie looked back over his shoulder.  "What's taking you so long, Harry?  We'll be in the middle of a spring thaw if you drag your ass any longer!" he yelld. 

"I'm hurrying as fast as I can!" Harry answered. 

His gaze went back to Elliot.  "Sorry, what was that?"

Elliot got the message, but looked miffed.  "That's not funny." 

"Who's laughing?"  Dickie replied.  "Think Harry is?"

"Don't be fresh," Elliot warned as disappointment curdled a bit and turned into irritation. 

Toby interceded right then. "Well, I'm extremely grateful you're here," he said stepping closer to the pair. "And I know Harry is too.  Thank you for bringing that stuff."

"Absolutely," bringing out a smile as he turned to Toby. "Glad _someone_ is appreciative."

"And for whatever it's worth, I think your dad's original plan was to have your sister bring something by if the snow didn't get too bad, but by the time we got home it was way too dangerous," Toby added, trying to mollify Elliot's aggravation. 

"Oh really?"  Dickie asked, turning a raised eyebrow to his father. 

Elliot held up his hand. "Alright, alright!"  He approached Dickie and patted him on the shoulder. " You did good. Sorry I snapped."

The corners of Dickie's mouth rose a bit. "It's all good, Dad," he said. "I'm just glad that you and Holly were at least thinking alike."

"Wait..." Toby said, putting his hand on Dickie's shoulder. " _Holly's_ the one that called and told you to bring Harry a coat?"

At that moment, Harry came out of the bedroom bundled up in Dickie's winter gear. It was still a bit big for him, but not by much. "Come on, man!" he said, grabbing Dickie by the elbow and hauling him towards the front door. 

Dickie looked back with a wave as Harry dragged him out of the apartment. "See you in a few!"

Both fathers waved back. As the door closed behind the boys, they both stood there  exchanging the same expression of surprise. A silent minute or two elapsed and then Toby spoke. "You were telling me about how I'd be surprised if I knew how well Holly was looking after Harry?"

Elliot inclined his head towards the door. "I was also telling you that teens are supposed to do stupid shit," he said. 

A smile broke across Toby's face. It was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. "Thank God we don't all forget that at the same time," he said and started to laugh. 

"You do realize that both of our sons just ditched their families for Christmas, don't you?"  Elliot asked.    
  
Toby only laughed harder, and soon Elliot lwas laughing too. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Aw man..." he sighed after they were both down to snorts and giggles.

"And hopefully you realize," Toby said, drawing near and taking off his glasses again, "that we have the place to ourselves for a bit, don't you?"

Elliot pointed his index finger at Toby and raised his eyebrows. "You're right."

"Been a good boy all year?" Toby asked coyly as they met in the middle of the hallway. 

Elliot shook his head. "Prob'ly not."

"Oh well," Toby whispered as their lips and tongues touched. 


	6. Letting Things Slide

Dressed but still basking in the afterglow of good sex, Elliot and Toby watched from a window as their kids romped around outside.  It didn't take long for the snow that laid nice and crisp and even in front of the brownstone to be covered in footprints, snow angels, and large gaping holes where Holly and Dickie had tried unsuccessfully to bury Harry.  More snow had begun to fall around noon that afternoon, and whatever work Holly had done to clear the stoop that morning was slowly being filled back in.  A couple came by sometime asking to borrow the shovel to get their car unstuck, and Holly had not only leant them the shovel, but she and the boys had also helped them clear the snow off of and around it. 

By one o'clock, everyone's jeans were soaked through and most sets of toes had gone numb, so the kids hauled themselves back inside to thaw.  Boots and shoes were left to drip dry in the hallway and wet clothes were carried to the basement to bake in the dryer.  Harry and Dickie raided their fathers' dressers for sweatpants and long sleeved t-shirts while Holly changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a soft cranberry-colored sweater.  As afternoon gave way to evening, the apartment began to fill with the hearty smells of the lamb stew and fresh cracked wheat bread that was being prepared for dinner.   While Toby fretted over ingredients, Elliot and Dickie tried to teach the Beecher children how to play Spades.  In the end it was an exercise in futility. Harry kept opening with a trump because he was determined to take the first trick every time, and the concept of bidding was lost on Holly who ended up sandbagging everyone for most of the games.  Left with no other choice, the four of them resorted to playing Bullshit which left everyone aching with laughter — even Toby who would randomly call out 'He's lying!' from the kitchen whenever Elliot made his play. 

Clothes came out of the dryer sometime after dinner was finished, and bodies filled with stew and bread went back into them.  Sometime after seven, the children migrated to the living room where, much to Elliot's dismay, Dickie called his mother upstate and gave an over-the-top performance about his "worsening condition."  Elliot pecked away one-handed at his laptop and shook his head every time Dickie completed a sentence while Toby's kids found themselves turning purple as they tried their best to suppress mad gales of laughter. 

"Yeah, I was only able to keep down a few Saltine crackers and tea," Dickie groaned as he rolled his eyes and drank from an imaginary teacup with his little finger pointing at the ceiling.  Lying on his inflatable mattress, Harry buried his face into a pillow and curled up into a fetal position.  His whole body shook with laughter that was getting harder to contain.  Holly had put her book face-down on her lap and was covering both of her hands with her mouth. 

Elliot closed his eyes and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, begging God for the strength to keep his irritation wrapped up tight.  He wasn't as bent out of shape over the fact that Dickie had showed up unannounced in the middle of a snowstorm anymore.  It was the fact that Dickie was lying to his mother again that was grating on his nerves.  That alone was bad enough, but watching as he turned it into entertainment for everyone else was worse.  His own father would have tanned his hide for this kind of a stunt.  But what was he going to do?  Be the grouch who ruined everyone's good humor because he didn't like being an accomplice to his son's dishonesty? 

Once upon a time, he would have. 

_I'd better get cash and prizes from my therapist for holding my temper right now._

A quiet chuckle came from the kitchen and he turned to see Toby grinning like a goofball  as he ladled stew into plastic containers for Dickie to take back with him to Queens.  

"You think this is funny?"

The smile stretched wider. "Mmm-hmm," he replied, nodding.

"You're a big help," Elliot huffed as he turned back to his computer. "Thanks."

"Should I send him back with some milk of magnesia too?" Toby asked.  "He sounds pretty bad, you know."

Elliot raised his chin but kept his eyes forward.  "Toby, have you forgotten that I have a gun?"

"Killjoy," chided Toby playfully as he snapped a lid onto a container.

"Nah, I don't need to bother Dad or Toby," Dickie continued.  "Besides, even if I didn't have a bellyache, I'd have to be some kind of idiot to schlepp all the way out to Brooklyn in the middle of weather like this."

A snort escaped Harry, and Dickie flung a throw pillow at him. It hit him square in the face and knocked him on to his back.  Holly bit her knuckle and screwed her eyes shut, trying hard to control herself. Another soft titter came from Toby in the kitchen.  Elliot covered his face with  his hand.

"Really, don't worry, Mom," said Dickie.  "I'll be fine in a couple of days.  Just give everyone my best there and tell 'em I'm sorry I couldn't be there."

_I'm going to ground this kid until he's forty_ , Elliot thought.

"Love you too," Dickie said.  "Bye."

The room exploded in laughter as Dickie hung up the phone.  Elliot simply let out a sigh of relief.  At least he didn't have to listen to it anymore. 

Dickie stood up, clasped both hands in front of him, and said, "I'd like to thank the Academy, all the little people, and also my wonderful, amazing, loving Dad for not killing me just now."

Toby began to applaud from the kitchen and soon the children joined in.  Elliot rolled his eyes.  "Don't you have a train to catch?" he finally asked.

"Elliot!" said Toby, his brow furrowing.

Dickie dismissed it with a wave of his hand.  "No, he's right.  I do need to get going.  God only knows when that train is going to come."

Elliot stood up.  "I want you to call me when you get back home," he said.

"I will, Dad.  Promise."

Elliot stood there looking sternly at his son for a few seconds. Dickie held his ground and looked back at him, his face placid and unbreakable.  It was a little unnerving to him to see a kid like this who had the courage of his convictions. All Elliot could do after a while was be glad that he had a good heart and was looking out for someone who needed help; so many kids that he had met who were this sure of themselves were often cruel and self-serving. That thought was enough to soften him a bit.  "Okay," he said, relaxing his face.  "I'll get your coat."

"Thanks," he said as he turned back to the living room.

"G'bye Big Bro," Harry said as he stood and gave Dickie a hug.  From her seat on the sofa, Holly simply closed her eyes, drew in a slow breath, and let it go. 

"Good to see you, kiddo," Dickie said.  He let go of Harry and tapped him under his chin with his finger.  "You keep your head up.  This is all gonna work out."

Harry nodded and smiled reluctantly.

"Bye girl," he said to Holly as he spread his arms.

Holly set her book aside and rose.  "Thanks again," she said, giving him a quick hug. 

"No problem," Dickie said. "Glad I could help."

Elliot returned with his son's coat and handed it to him.  Dickie pulled the brown wool hat out of one of the sleeves and held them in his teeth while he slipped into his coat.  As he looked at his son, a peculiar feeling swarmed over him. For an instant, the hat Dickie had in his teeth had somehow transformed into a full beard, and as it did, Elliot thought he could feel his back stoop a bit his belly pooch out into a grandpa gut.

_Jesus... my boy is the third adult in this room._

Dickie took the hat out of his mouth and furrowed his brow.  "Dad, what is it?"

Elliot blinked. Everything went back to normal.  "Nothing," he said with a tiny smile.  "Just... get home safe."  Dickie laughed nervously.  "Okay Dad," he said, shaking his head as if to comment about how weird adults were.

 

****

 

Toby had sent Dickie out the door with a hug, a grocery bag filled with enough containers of stew to keep Dickie fed for a couple of days, and warm wishes for a merry Christmas.  Now he returned to the living room where his own children were settling back into their places.  "Okay," he said, pointing down the hall.  "Showers.  Now."

Harry sprang to his feet, looking at Holly first and then at Toby.  "Can I go first?"

Holly regarded him with her mouth open in surprise at first, and then her eyes narrowed and her jaw slid out a bit.  Luckily, Harry never caught the sour look on her face, but Toby had and all his internal alarms started blaring. It had been such a good day.  Was she really going to start with him now? 

Instantly, and much to Toby's relief, her face cleared. "Yeah, go ahead," she said, returning gathering her book and standing up.  "I'll be in my room until it's my turn."  With that she walked quietly away.  Harry began to gather up his toothbrush and his towel.  Toby and Elliot watched her go, and for a moment their eyes met and a strange feeling of relief passed between them.  One of her token complaints at moments like this was that Harry took too long in the shower and barely left any hot water for anyone else.  This time, no ruckus had been raised.  Elliot acknowledged the moment by raising his eyebrows in surprise before turning back to his laptop.  Toby looked back and caught her figure just before she disappeared into her room. 

It was then that Toby realized that she had literally saved the day... not just by calling Dickie to bring a coat for Dickie, but also by stowing her anger and simply letting things be. 

_Atta girl!_

Toby relaxed for a minute until it occurred to him that she probably deserved better than that.  He started for her room, pausing on the way to touch Elliot once on the shoulder.  Elliot didn't look up from his laptop, but stopped pecking at the keyboard long enough to pat him on the hand twice.     

At her doorway, he saw her sitting up in bed and turning the page of her book.  She seemed to be holding the book a little closer than normal, and Toby wondered not too idly if a trip to the optometrist lay ahead in the near future.

"I know you're there, Dad," she said, not looking up.  "Come on in."

He grinned and entered her room, noticing once again that the little girl artwork and pastel colors that had once adorned this room had been replaced by walls the color of light coffee that were now covered with posters of boy bands, random pages torn from magazines, and poetry she had written on wide-ruled paper in a purplish-blue ink. Her desk was a testament to order — a trait Toby was sure had skipped over him and gone right from his father to her.  One stuffed animal, a compact monkey that she had gotten sometime after Toby had been arrested for his first DUI, sat on top of her bookcase greeting everyone who came in with big brown eyes and a chubby-cheeked grin.

Toby sat down on her bed by her feet and tapped the top of the book in her hands.  "Whatcha reading?"

" _Snow Country_ by... " She paused to look at the author's name. "Ka..wa..ba..ta... Something-or-other." 

He'd never heard of it, but raised his eyebrows and nodded.  "How is it?"        

She looked over the top of the book with doubt in her eyes.  "I've read instruction manuals that were more interesting."

Toby began to laugh.  "Really?"

She nodded.  "Mr. Alessi wanted us to read an English translation of some piece of literature from another country, and he swore that this is the best book ever written in Japan."  She rolled her eyes, closed the book, plunked it on her night table.  "He lied."

He squeezed her foot.  "Sorry, kiddo."

She shrugged and then met his eyes.  "What's up?"

Toby smiled a bit.  "I just want to tell you how proud I am of you.  What you did for your brother today was really wonderful."

Holly's face fell a little bit. "Yeah well..."

Toby looked puzzled.  "What do you mean 'Yeah well...'?"

She looked away.  "Nothing."

Toby squeezed her foot again.  "Hol, you know I know better than to believe that."

Her gaze returned to Toby, and she looked as if she were being forced to do something against her will.  "I didn't exactly do it for him, okay? Truth be told, part of me kinda wished that I could just let him freeze while he was here 'seeking asylum.'" She drew invisible quotes in the air around her face with hooked fingers.  "But I knew it wouldn't be right with everything he's got on his plate right now." She tilted her head and shrugged again.  "So I did it so that I could live with myself, okay?"

Toby let go of her foot and patted it once.  "Whatever your reason and whoever you did it for," he said, "I'm proud of you. You did a good thing."

A bit of anger surfaced in her eyes.  "I hope it counts for something, 'cause you have no idea how much I am letting things slide right now."

"Yeah, I saw your face when Harry wanted the shower first."

"That's nothing compared to hearing him call Dickie 'Big Bro' all day long" she said, letting her teeth show a little.  "I still fucking hate it when he calls him that."

Toby's featured darkened.  "Holly..."

She rolled her eyes again.  "Sorry, Dad."

"Why does that bug you so much?"

"'Cause he knows better!" she said, turning up the palm of her hand and shaking her head a bit.  The look on her face clearly asked Toby how he could fail to understand that.

Toby sighed.  They had had this talk before and it had unsettled both of them.  "Holly, for God's sake..."

"Dad, I know," she interrupted.  "He's technically been raised as an only child and it's good for him to have another guy to look up to, but it still doesn't change how I feel about hearing him say it. And you know I can't talk about it with him without getting my nose out of joint over it."

Toby nodded sadly.  There was no point in rehashing that point with her, but he still felt like addressing it.  Perhaps trying from another angle was worth a shot.  "What would you rather he do?"

Holly's eyebrows met above her nose. "What do you mean?"

Toby extended his hand in her direction. "Well, you said that you think Harry knows better.  What do you think he should be doing instead?"

Her eyes slipped away from him.  "I don't know."

Toby reached over and touched her chin.  "Yeah, you do."

A shuddery sigh escaped her lungs and tears began to pool in the corners of her eyes.  "I wish the little shit would think about Gary sometime!  Even ask about him just once, for God's sake!"

Toby felt his own heart crack a bit, and he gathered her into an embrace.  She cried for a minute or two on his shoulder, and squeezed back his own tears.  The memory of kneeling before his son's little coffin flooded his mind, and with it came the wretched, gouging heartache of that moment.  He held her tighter and stroked her hair, knowing that the horror of Gary's final moments as a living person was playing back in her own mind.  For an instant, questions that had in all likelihood occurred to Holly began to pop up in his mind.  How would eighteen year-old Gary handled his brother's uncertainty about his sexuality and his guilt over how he had treated the other kid?  Would this fiasco have even happened if he had lived?  If it had, would he have come home in the middle of inclement weather with a coat for his runaway kid brother?  Hell, would he have even _liked_ Harry?

"Everything okay?"

They broke their embrace and looked at the doorway.  Harry stood there with damp hair and rosy cheeks looking worried. 

Holly sniffed and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to compose herself.  Toby stood up and straightened his shirt.  "Everything's okay," he said, doubting that he sounded convincing.

Harry's gaze dropped a bit.  "I just wanted to tell you that the shower was all yours, Holly," he said.  A half-smile touched the corners of his mouth.  "Left you some hot water too."

Holly attempted a smile and pawed at her eyes.  "Thanks," she said, standing up. "I'm coming."

Harry simply nodded and left.

Toby looked at his daughter again.  She looked weary, but hopefully the shower would help her regroup.  "Holly, you okay?"

She looked at her father and a more sincere smile appeared.  "Yeah, I'll be fine.  Now get outta here so I can get undressed."

Toby nodded once and closed the door as she left.    On the way back to the living room, he paused in front of a picture frame on the wall.  Inside it, a much younger Tobias Beecher was holding a blonde baby boy in a onesie covered with pictures of cuddly bears and tigers.  The baby was holding a pair of glasses in his chubby fist and looked as if he were twirling them like a New Year's Day noisemaker. The look of pure, innocent delight on the faces of both people in the photograph could have brought a smile to the most cynical jerk on the planet. Toby kissed the pad of his index finger and tapped it on the glass once.

"Merry Christmas, Gary," he whispered.


	7. Messages

"Where are you going?" Elliot asked as Toby closed the closet door. 

"It's my turn to go play in the snow," Toby said as he slipped into his coat. "You just keep working. I'll only be a minute." 

"She okay?" Elliot asked, inclining his head towards the bathroom where Holly had disappeared a minute earlier. 

Toby nodded. He wanted to say more, but Harry was right there at the table with him pecking away on his phone. 

"How's Toby?" Elliot asked. 

Toby pocketed his cell phone and pulled on one of his gloves. "He'll tell you after he's gotten some air." _And after my son is not within easy listening range._

Elliot hesitated for a minute then, apparently realizing he was not going to get much more from Toby, went back to his computer with a nod and a small smile. Harry looked up at him and gave him a small wave, and then went back to his phone. 

Toby stood there looking at the two of them seated at the kitchen table, each one focused on some kind of electronic gadget. Thoughts of Gary were still swirling in his head, and for a second Toby tried to imagine him seated at the table with the two them. When the image did come, it was all wrong. Gary was still eight years old with a number-two pencil clenched in his fist and a crude drawing on the pad of wide-lined paper in front of him... and shouldn't have been. He screwed his eyes shut and then opened them again. It was just Harry and Elliot at the table. It didn't hurt any less. There was a moment where Toby wished he hadn't let Dickie go back to Queens, and then he pulled on the other glove and stepped out the door before he gave such thoughts any more time. 

The air was brisk and sweet outside, and a few lungfuls of it actually calmed Toby down a bit. Chet had often told him how important it was to keep things simple and that the simplest thing he could do sometimes when he was in turmoil was just stop, take a few breaths, and try to think of one thing to be grateful for at that moment, even if it was just that he could breathe without the assistance of machinery. This was one of those moments, but he knew there was more to be grateful for than that. Realizing this, Toby removed his cell phone from his pocket and scrolled through his contacts until he found Chet's number. He pressed the call button and waited for either Chet or his voicemail to pick up. He knew better than to send a text; Chet had made it very clear that he did not accept them when it came to his sponsees. _I'll always know if you're telling the truth or lying to me if I hear your voice, Toby,_ he had said with a grin. _If you text me, I'll just assume you're lying._ Toby never really understood the logic behind that statement, but had guessed that it was just Chet's way of getting Toby into the habit of calling him regularly. Whatever it was, it had worked. Toby never texted him. He supposed if he ever got to be someone's sponsor, he would probably say the same thing to his protégé too. 

Chet's voicemail picked up. Toby waited for the beep, and then began to speak. "Hi Chet. Toby here. Afraid I didn't get to a meeting today because the whole city was shut down, of course. But I am still sober. I also had a bunch of really neat surprises in the last day or so. My son is here from California, and he's..." 

_He's safe, he's whole, he's unhurt, and people know where he is..._

"...going through some tough things, but I'm so grateful that he came to be with me. His sister is being supportive, and Elliot's son..." 

_Big Bro..._

_I still fucking hate it when he calls him that..._

"...brought him a winter coat and hung out here with him for a bit. We all had dinner together. It's all good stuff, and I'm just really glad that everybody really came together today. Just needed to share that. Hope you're doing well too. Take care and I'll try you again tomorrow." 

Toby snapped his cell phone shut and cringed for a minute. Chet said he would be able to tell if Toby was lying if he heard his voice, but wondered if he could tell from the sound of his voice that he was also giving the man a glossed-over version of the whole story? That there were all kinds of new questions and fears pecking away at him? That he was still avoiding listening to Jonah's message from this morning after Harry had told him he hated him? He desperately wanted to talk to someone about these things, but unloading all that into Chet's voicemail was a stupid idea. 

Well, there was one other person whom he could call... someone who would definitely understand and not interrupt after five minutes with the usual question about what action he was taking. 

He flipped open the phone again and thumbed through his contacts until he got the number he wanted and dialed it. The phone rang once... twice... three times. Toby closed his eyes and shook his head. The voicemail picked up after the next ring, told him that the person at his mother's phone number was unavailable right now, and instructed him to leave a message after the tone.  "Hello Mother," he said after the beep. "Hope everything is going well up there in Vermont with Angus and his family. I suppose that Jonah and Marta have gotten in touch with you too about what happened with Harry. I just wanted to let you know that he is here and he's okay. He's got a warm coat thanks to Dickie Stabler, and he and Holly are not destroying each other yet... haha. Anyway, please give everyone my love and call when you can. Love you." 

Toby closed his cell phone and pocketed it. Where the hell was everyone? Chet was probably still helping New York City dig itself out of the snow, and his mother was probably out with Angus's family at the store, stocking up for when the storm headed into their area and socked them in for a few days. Like Elliot's family, they had all left a few days before the snow immobilized New York City and knew it was going to get up there to them eventually, but when it finally passed they would have excellent skiing conditions. 

He sighed and bit his lip. 

He was glad his mother had changed his mind about selling the house in Vermont, and was overjoyed when he heard her declare that it was a happy place again now that new memories were being made there. He also knew it was childish to be jealous of Angus and his family for being there and enjoying what was rightfully his just as much at it was Toby's, but in some way he couldn't help it. The happy memories had begun again with him and his family. It didn't matter that he hadn't yet formally thought of Elliot, his kids, and Olivia part of his family the way he did now. Everything had started falling into place with his life then and there. Angus already had everything in place. Angus had stayed on the path that had been carved out for him and everything had gone as it should. Angus and his children were ostensibly free of the psychological traumas that were plaguing his own kids. Hell, Angus's children had all lived to see each one of their birthdays and Angus had been there at every party and... 

_Stop that!_

Toby screwed his eyes shut and tried to turn off his racing mind. He drew in another full breath of air and let it go, trying to remember what a good thing it was that the air was going in to his lungs unaided and that the air coming out didn't smell like booze. He was sure that at an AA meeting somewhere, an alcoholic was probably talking about how the holidays were always difficult. Not knowing he was doing it, Toby nodded in agreement at the thought. 

It was silly, he told himself, to be thinking like that. He had just gotten done leaving messages for people who cared for and about him and his family that there were lots of reasons to be grateful right now, but those reasons just weren't sticking to him. What was sticking instead were the questions to which Toby didn't know the answer. How was he going to help Harry, either with his problem back home in California or with Jonah and Marta when they got here? Surely helping Harry to run away wasn't going to solve the problem of his son's sexuality (if there was one) or his guilt over what had happened to the kid who had killed himself, but making him go back with them wasn't going to help either, especially since they were already reeling him in tight like the rebellious, ready-for-juvenile-hall teen they seemed to think he was. 

The kid needed help, for sure, but Toby knew there was only so much he could do. If only Jonah wasn't the type who equated therapy with flushing money down the toilet, then maybe Harry could get some of the help he needed. If Harry were in New York, he'd definitely get it. Toby would make sure of it, in fact. It almost seemed like a good idea to make that a condition of moving here to New York to live with him. But would Harry coöperate? Elliott had said more than once that nothing was harder than making teenagers go someplace they didn't want to go. Harry clearly believed that things would be better for him if he were in New York with his father, that he would find some level of acceptance from his family that he wasn't getting in his current setup, but did Harry realize that some of his problems were going to follow him and find him hiding out here? What would he do then? Battle them the same way he had in California? He was already losing that battle. If he had he taken on some of his grandfather's attitudes toward therapy, he'd lose even worse. 

_You don't know that he feels that way about therapy,_ his mind tried to tell him. 

That was true. Maybe as the schism between himself and Jonah had widened, Harry had thrown into the crevasse the old man's attitudes about counseling. He had certainly thrown in the old man's ideas about homosexuality, and even a few about what a saint his mother had been. Maybe Harry would be agreeable to something like a teen support group or Alateen. It would actually be nice if he were interested in something like that because those avenues were often free of charge whereas therapy was expensive. 

_Isn't it worth the money?_ said a more practical part of his mind. It reminded him in some ways of how didactic Sister Pete could be. _This is actually your son's health you're thinking about, Toby._

Yes, it was worth it. But that was not the only expense to consider. Someone had to educate that kid, feed him, clothe him, and make sure he needed for nothing. He didn't put it past Jonah and Marta to wash their hands of Harry financially as a way of punishing both their grandson for his ingratitude and Toby for sanctioning it. Or maybe they would continue to provide support provided they got a say in how Harry continued to live his life. Did he really need them though? Combined with Elliot's salary, Toby was probably in a position to do take on the expense that came with Harry, but Elliot was still taking care of his own kids too. Kathleen's therapy was being subsidized by the state at some level because of the criminal charges that had come attached to it, but at some point someone was going to have to take over for her care, not to mention resuming her education at Hudson University in the city. The twins were also on the brink of college. Having a city employee for a parent helped their forthcoming expenses some, but they were also stuck looking at scholarships and loans to supplement it. College was also looming on Holly's horizon. She wanted to stay in the city too and commute from home, but part Toby was also hopeful that she would consider someplace upstate enough to be so that her father would not get into trouble while she was absent. And never mind the college expenses. Harry couldn't just sleep on an inflatable mattress in his and Elliot's living room for the rest of his childhood. They'd have to move to a bigger apartment, but where? Life in New York was not getting any cheaper, and these days you basically had to sell your soul (if you had one) to the Devil to get a decent apartment anywhere. Toby knew that the Beecher name had once opened doors for him, but now that name had also come with some scandal that closed many of them. Not even a relationship with a member of the NYPD was going to get them open. And he would never ever beg his mother for help. She'd already been through enough trouble on his account. 

He supposed he could try to go back to the New York Bar and ask for his license to practice law again, which would open up some doors for a better paying job perhaps. He knew people in AA who had done it, along with some doctors and nurses who had gotten their medical licenses back. If they could do it, why not him too? It was possible to go back to that life and be sober, he believed, but it would guarantee an absenteeism in the home that he knew would be harmful to Holly and Harry. Even Elliot's job guaranteed no security in that matter. Not only could he be called in at any hour of the night, he risked not coming back at all. Holly had been in hysterics when she heard that Elliot had been shot almost a month ago. Even the counsel of the junior Stablers who had been through this before had done little to calm her down. Harry had bonded with Elliot too. It had taken time, but he had. Even his remark the night before as they were standing outside the precinct about how he figured that Toby and Elliot both were mad at him indicated that he saw Elliot as a parental figure of some sort too. Wouldn't being absent at this time be just as bad as telling him he had to go back to San Diego? 

_Why are you insisting that his going back to San Diego is the worst thing that could happen to him?_ asked the voice that sounded more and more like Sister Pete each time he thought he heard it. 

"Because Harry thinks it's the worst thing that could happen to him," he answered aloud into the empty street. 

_And he's a teenager,_ said the nun. _Who's the adult in this relationship, Tobias?_

"I am," he whispered. 

_Then if you're going to let your son stay here with you, then you need to so because you think it's the best for him, not because Harry says so._

"Christ, I know that!" he said a little louder. 

But he didn't know if it was best for him or not. Could he really provide anything better than Jonah and Marta had done for the last fourteen years? In the way of emotional support, perhaps he could, but was that enough? 

A swarm of conflicting voices from his past filled his mind, arguing both for and against the possibility, and Toby grit his teeth against them. He pawed for his phone in his pocket, thinking maybe he should make another phone call, but as soon as he saw the light flashing that indicated he had an unheard message, he made a different decision — one that he knew was probably just as self-destructive as taking a drink. 

Toby pressed the button on his cell phone that had a picture of an envelope on it and held it to his ear. 

"This is Jonah Simmons calling," began the message after a brief pause to draw a breath. "I know you just heard that phone call between Harrison and me, and I hope you are just as appalled at his behavior as we are. This is not the first time, as you know, but now hopefully you have witnessed what Marta and I have had to put up with. Your sanctioning it by letting him hid out there and tell us not to bother coming to get him is no help, Toby. And while you may have had the right idea by telling him that he had to pay us back for the trip to Saint Maarten that his little stunt just ruined, you clearly have forgotten that he is a child and accordingly has no financial wherewithal. What's he supposed to do? Quit school and get a job? If you bothered to use your head, one that has clearly thrown away a good legal education from Harvard, you would know that that's stupidity in its peak performance!" There was another pause while Jonah drew in another breath, and then he went on. "I am not going to ask you to call back because I know you're not going to do so. However, I do expect you to tell Harrison that he is to call and apologize to his grandmother and me for both his insubordinate, filthy mouth and for foolishly promising to deliver restitution that he knows damn well he cannot make... though frankly, I think you owe the apology for that. With that said, Marta and I will be arriving on the first flight we can get out to New York, and we expect your full coöperation in dealing with this situation, sir. We will contact you with our flight information as soon as we have it. Goodbye." 

The beep that ended the message sounded in Toby's ear. It was eerily silent on the street after that. In fact it was so quiet that Toby could hear his teeth grinding and the furious breaths coming in and out of his nose. This was the last time he was ever going to put up with that kind of shitty treatment from the old man on the other side of the continent. Enough was enough. He wanted Toby's coöperation? Well, he wasn't going to get it! 

_Oh please,_ came Jonah's voice, and Toby knew right then that he had truly made a bad mistake listening to his message. _You really think you stand a chance? I've managed and fought with soldiers in combat, you silly little civilian plebe! I'm a decorated admiral and therefore a man of respect! Think a little faggoty disbarred lawyer who ran over a little girl in a drunken stupor is going to stop me? Or even be thought of as a better parent than me? I don't care if you are taking it up the ass one of New York's finest, boy. Who's side do you really think the law is going to take?_

Toby clawed at his hair. He knew whose side they would take. 

"There was an old Toby who lived in a shoe," he began to chant. "He had only two children, but didn't know what to do. He gave them both shrinks 'cause that's all that he had, and then whipped himself soundly 'cause he couldn't be Dad." 

_That's not the Serenity Prayer, Toby,_ said Chet's voice chimed in. 

"Fuck you, Chet!" Toby spat, as he stormed back into his building. "If you wanted to tell me what to pray then you should have picked up your fucking phone!" 

_By the way, Toby,_ said the old man, _that you act like this when you're not drinking and can't get ahold of your sponsor doesn't make things look good for you either._

For a moment, Toby had a small out-of-body experience and saw what he supposed a casual observer would see from a window on his street: a middle-aged man out in the snow, stomping in fury and talking back to voices only he could hear, sometimes without his cell phone pressed to his ear. It was like a slap in the face. As horrifying as it was to think about how the Jonah in his mind knew things that the real one probably didn't, but was using them to his advantage, it was even more horrifying that he was letting this day, which had gone so well, was now curdle like bad milk. 

_You fuckup!_

Suddenly, not caring anymore how big a fool he looked, Toby buried his face in his hands and began to cry.


End file.
